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JAN  11  1917 


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CHEISTIAN^ITY 


AND 


SEX  PROBLEMS 


BY 

HUGH  "nORTHOOTE,  M.A. 


Second  Edition  Revised  and  Enlarged 


PHILADELPHIA 
F.  A.  DAVIS  COMPANY,  Publishers 

English  Depot 

Stanley  Phillips,  London 

1916 


COPYRIGHT.   1906 
COPYRIGHT.   1916 


F.   A.    DAVIS  COMPANY 

Copyright,  Great  Britain.     All  Rights  Reserved 


Philadelphia,  Pa.,  U.  S.  A. 

Press  of  F,  A.  Davis  Company 

1914-16  Cherry  Street 


DEDICATION 


TO    ALL  MY    FELLOWMEN    AND    WOMEN,    HOWEVER 

MUCH  TEMPTED      AND     HOWEVER      FAR     FALLEN, 

WHOSE  FACES    ARE     STILL    TURNED    TOWARD    THE 

IDEALS  OF      LOVE      AND      HOLINESS      AND      TRl'TII. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 


The  first  edition  of  this  book  was  written  with  sufficient 
consciousness  of  having  a  purpose  to  fulfill,  or  a  message  to 
deliver,  but  in  much  literary  inexperience.  I  had  not  chosen  to 
address  a  particular  circle  of  readers,  and  I  did  not  produce  a 
book  which  was  readily  assignable  to  any  special  class  of 
literature. 

It  is  too  late  now  to  remedy  in  full  this  defect,  wliich 
after  all  perhaps  occasioned  a  broader,  more  human  treatment 
of  the  subject  than  I  should  otherwise  have  given  it.  It  is 
meant  for  thoughtful  readers  in  general,  not  for  any  particular 
class  or  profession.  If,  however,  one  must  name  a  section  of 
literature  to  which  to  assign  it,  perhaps  it  should  be  included 
in  moral  theology.  Havelock  Ellis  has  shown  that  modern 
scientific  sex  literature  has  an  ample  precedent  in  the  passion- 
less survey  of  sexual  phenomena  made  by  Sanchez  and  other 
Catholic  moralists.! 

This  body  of  Catholic  literature  has  often  been  criti- 
cised and  even  denounced ;-  nor  indeed  are  the  strictures  upon 
it  always  irrelevant  or  unjustified.  But  it  must  not  be  inferred 
from  the  fact  that  such  a  thing  as  bad  casuistry  exists,  that 
no  science  of  casuistry  is  needed,  and  that  no  good  casuistry 
is  possible.-'^  Rather,  it  is  now  increasingly  recognized  that, 
however  faulty  particular  expositions  of  sexual  moral  theology 
may  be,  this  science  holds  a  rightful  place  in  the  scheme  of 


1  General   Preface  to  the   Studies  in  the  Psychology  of   Sex. 

2  See,    e.g.,   von    Hoensbroech,   Fourteen   Years   a   Jesuit,    vol.    ii, 
p.  293;  in  particular,  Mohler's  utterance  there  quoted. 

2"  Cf.    R.   M.   Wenley,   art.    Casuistry,   in    Hastings.    Encycl.    Rel. 


Ethics,  vol 


(v) 


vi  PREFACE. 

knowledge,  and  has  an  imjiortant  function  to  fulrtll  in  the 
moral  education  of  mankind. 

A  sound  apologetic  for  this  branch  of  moral  theology  has 
been  recently  developed  by  the  erudite  Iwan  Bloch.  whose 
words  I  quote:  "There  come  times  when  a  man  feels  the 
need  of  relieving  his  mind,  by  the  confession  of  even  his  sex- 
ual troubles.  In  this  fact  lies  a  certain  justification  of  the 
books  of  confession  and  the  subtle  sexual  casuistry  of  the 
moral  theologians,  works  which  have  indeed  been  composed 
with  a  view  to  application  to  practical  life." 

After  indicating  the  spiritual  aspect  of  medical  science. 
and  emphasizing  its  claim  to  be  a  formative  influence  in  the 
aforesaid  province  of  moral  theology,  Bloch  welcomes  as  a 
sign  of  progress  a  new.  scientifically  conceived  defense, 
ofifered  by  a  Roman  Catholic  thinker,  of  the  study  of  sex."' 

In  fact,  Howard's  prophecy  of  a  few  years  since, "*  that 
sex  questions  would  come  to  hold  an  honorable  place  in  human 
thought,  is  already  being  rapidly  fulfilled.  A  vast  body  of 
literature,  iar  greater  than  I  have  been  able  to  acquaint  myself 
with  in  detail,  has  appeared  on  the  study  of  sex  within  the 
past  ten  years.  Dr.  Havelock  Ellis  has  completed  his  elaborate 
Studies  on  the  Psychology  of  Sex.  Important  and  massive 
work  has  been  produced  by  Forel,  Westermarck.  Bloch,  and 
other  eminent  scientists,  scholars,  and  thinkers.  Sex  ques- 
tions are  being  elaborately  considered  by  various  writers  in  Dr. 
Hastings's  Eucychpcrdia  of  Religion  and  Ethics. 

Notable  events  in  the  progress  of  sex  studies  have  been 
the  publication  in  Germany  of  Moll's  Haiidhuch  der  Scxiial- 
zi'isscnschaftcji,  and  the  announcement  and  commencement  of 
a  yet  more  elaborate  survey  by  Bloch  and  others,  of  the  great 
subject. 

Another  significant  fact  is  the  formation  of  special 
societies  for  the  study  of  sex  in  one  or  other  of  its  bearings. 


■'•  Bloch,   Die   Prostitution,  bk.   i,  pp.  644f. 

■*  Howard,   Hist,  of   Matrimonial    Institutions,   vol.   iii,   p.   257. 


0 


PREFACE.  vii 

These  societies  have  their  literary  organs :  the  Eugenics 
Rcvicio,  Prcz'eiitioii,  Die  Nciic  Generation,  and  the  Itahan  pub- 
Hcation  //  Rogo,  are  but  instances  out  of  a  number  of  such 
magazines. 

b'inally,  the  organized  churches  have  begun  to  join  in  the 
movement  for  the  vmderstanding  of  sex.  I  have  frequently 
quoted  in  the  following  pages  the  first  volume  (published  with 
the  im])rimatur  of  the  Church  of  Rome)  of  a  work,  OuastiOnes 
Theologice  Medicopasioralis,  of  which  further  volumes  are  an- 
nounced. In  England  a  series  of  tracts  on  sex  questions  has 
been  coming  out  under  the  interconfessional  and  undenomina- 
tional auspices  of  the  National  Council  of  Public  Morals, 
which  numbers  many  Anglican  bishops  and  other  ecclesiastical 
dignitaries  among  its  vice-presidents. 

The  series  is  popular  in  conception  and  consequently  free 
from  technicalities;  its  basis  is  scientific  as  well  as  religious; 
and  it  exhibits  an  ethical  foresight  in  which  boldness  is,  occa- 
sionally, at  least  as  visible  as  caution."'  It  was,  further,  cer- 
tainly significant — it  was  a  striking  admission  of  the  claim  of 
modern  science  to  influence  the  sex  ethic — that  the  writer  who 
was  chosen  to  open  this  remarkable  series  was  Dr.  Havelock 
Ellis.  For  this  scientist  had  had  not  only  to  labor,  but  to 
encoimter  legal  opposition,  in  the  production  of  the  book 
already  referred  to,  a  book  regarded  not  only  in  England  and 


''E.g..  Dr.  Saleeby  says:  "Even  the  supposed  ultimate  canons  of 
morality  must  be  re-examined  and,  if  necessary,  revised  or  restated  in 
order  to  arrive  at  the  supreme  end  for  which  the  world  was  made, — 
the  production  of  noble  men  and  women"  (The  Methods  of  Race 
Regeneration,  p.  14)  ;  and  two  biologists.  Professors  Geddes  and 
Thomson,  who  have  been  given  a  prominent  part  in  the  program,  in  a 
companion  work  of  theirs  on  Sex,  in  spite  of  Forel's  revolutionary 
views  and  his  attitude  of  aloofness  to  religious  revelation  (See  Die 
sexuelle  Frage,  Kap.  xiv,  ed.  1;  Kap.  xv,  ed.  10),  recommend  the 
English  edition  of  his  remarkable  work  as  "the  best  general  work  on 
sex."  They  would  perhaps  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  English  version 
is  "an  adaptation." 


viii  PREFACE. 

America,  but  in  Germany  also,  as  setting  the  standard,  in  the 
matter  of  learning  and  scientific  range,  for  the  literature  of 
sex.^  The  issue  of  his  tract  The  Problem  of  Race  Regenera- 
tion, accompanied  with  a  recognition,  on  the  part  of  the  organ- 
izers of  the  series,  of  his  eminence  as  a  student  of  sex,  implied 
a  victory  not  only  for  the  writer  himself,  in  his  personal  con- 
flict, but  for  the  cause  he  represents,  the  rights  of  the  inductive 
method  in  the  understanding  of  sex  and  the  sex  ethic. 

Nor  is  the  development  of  the  study  of  sex  barren  in 
social  efl:'ect.  It  is  aft'ecting  legislation ;  and  civilized  humanity 
watches  the  process,  at  the  several  points  of  marriage,  eugenics, 
and  criminology,  with  interest  that  now  flushes  into  hope  and 
now  darkens  into  anxiety. 

In  face'  of  all  this  mental  activity,  in  presence  of  all  the 
aforesaid  richly  informed  and  weighty  opinion,  it  is  with  no 
slight  feeling  of  diffidence  that  I  present  to  the  public  this  new 
edition  of  my  book.'^  It  still  is,  what  it  was  at  first,  imperfect 
and  fragmentary.  But  for  a  writer  to  deplore  overmuch  such 
an  aspect  of  his  work  would  only  indicate  an  overestimate  of 
its  importance ;  and  it  is  right  to  remember  that,  as  Bloch  has 
observed,  "We  have  attained  to  the  knowledge  that  no  one 
person  can  undertake  the  mighty  work  of  revising  the  bear- 


^  See  Dr.  Helene  Stocker  in  Die  Neue  Generation,  Jahrg.  8, 
Heft  7;  and  A.  E.  Crawley's  review  of  Ellis's  Sex  and  Society,  in  the 
Eugenics  Review,  and  esp.  A.  Moll,  pref.  to  The  Sexual  Life  of  the 
Child. 

■^  I  should  mention  that  this  book  is  written  with  no  special  ref- 
erence to  American  problems  or  conditions.  The  only  reason  why  it 
is  published  in  the  United  States  is  that,  some  years  ago  at  any  rate, 
American  publishers  had  more  courage  and  enterprise  than  English 
publishers  in  connection  with  work  on  sex  questions.  The  fact  is 
that  in  the  progress  of  my  work  I  have  felt  more  and  more  the  dis- 
advantage of  having  never  been  to  the  States  and  of  possessing,  con- 
sequently, a  very  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  efforts  which  that  great 
community  is  making  toward  the  solution  of  sexual  and  other  moral 
problems.  The  American  Social  Hygiene  Association  is  making  a  gen- 
eral survey  of  the  sex  ethic  in  the  States  (The  Shield,  Oct.,  1915). 


PREFACE.  ix 

ings  of  sexual  morality  on  the  basis  of  the  change  in  con- 
ditions wrought  by  civilization,  but  that  such  an  effort  demands 
the  co-operation  of  many;  and  that  the  sexual  question  is  only 
a  part  of  the  social  question,  whose  lines  of  direction  cannot 
be  changed  suddenly,  but  only  very  gradually."'^ 

When  I  had  at  length  seen  the  first  edition  of  this  book 
through  the  press  and  held  a  copy  of  it  in  my  hand,  I  was 
tempted,  with  the  natural  pride  w4iich  an  author  feels  especially 
in  regard  to  his  first  book,  to  hope  that  it  would  speedily  at- 
tract considerable  attention.  Immediately  a  thought  came  to 
me,  shaping  itself  in  such  words  as  these :  "Well,  after  all, 
you  may  see,  when  a  few  years  have  passed,  that  it  was  best 
that  your  book  should  have  been  quietly  useful."  Such  was 
indeed  the  course  things  took.  The  book  procured  for  its 
author  no  literary  fame ;  but  on  sufficient  evidence  I  may  hope 
and  believe  that  it  has  indeed  been  quietly  useful  in  its 
province  of  thought.  And  I  trust  that  this  good  destiny  will 
now  be  further  fulfilled;  that  where,  if  anywhere,  Christianity 
and  Sex  Problems  advances  wrong  or  injudicious  views,  more 
competent  students  than  myself  may  be  moved  to  disprove 
them ;  and  that  the  book  may  continue  to  be  quietly  useful ;  of 
real,  if  humble  and  imperfect,  service  in  upholding  the  ulti- 
mate objective  principles  and  categorical  elements  of  sexual 
morality,  and  in  testing  the  empirical  solutions  of  the  prob- 
lems raised  by  their  relation  to  the  social,  psychological,  and 
other  phenomena  revealed  by  the  progressive  science  of  sex." 

H..  North  COTE. 

Boulogne-Snr-Mer. 


8  I.  Bloch,  in  Die  Neuc  Generation,  Jahrg.  8,  Heft  1,  p.  22. 

^  The  absence  in  this  book  of  any  allusion  to  the  great  war  will 
cause  the  less  surprise  when  it  is  considered  that  a  state  of  war  does 
not  so  much  raise  new  problems  in  the  sex  life  as  increase  the  urgency 
of  some  of  those  which  exist,  and  occasion  emergency  measures. 
(For  discussions  see  The  Shield,  since  the  outljreak  of  war.) 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION. 


This  book  has  been  composed  amid  the  pressure  of 
numerous  duties  and  in  several  circumstances  of  difficuUy. 
The  author  feels  that  the  most  he  has  accomplished  is  the 
production  of  a  series  of  fragmentary  and  imperfect  studies 
upon  his  subject. 

His  thanks  are  due  to  several  gentlemen  in  New  Zealand, 
Australia,  the  South  Sea  Islands  and  elsewhere,  for  courteous 
answers  given  to  his  inquiries.  They  are  due  especially  to 
Prof.  F.  W.  Haslam,  of  Canterbury  College,  X.  Z.,  and  to  Dr. 
Havelock  Ellis,  from  whom  he  received  invaluable  sympathy 
and  encouragement  at  a  difficult  stage  of  his  labors.  That  the 
writer  is  further  greatly  indebted  to  this  eminent  scientist,  as 
also  to  Dr.  W'estermarck  and  Mr.  Crawley,  will  be  sufficiently 
evident. 


(X) 


CONTENTS, 


INTRODUCTORY.  page 

Ethic  of  the  Sexes — Science  of  Sex — Literature  on  Sex  Questions 

— General  Result  of  Present  Inquiry 1 

CHAPTER    I. 

General  View  of  Sex  Love. 

Sexual  Love — Its  Intensity — Modesty — Biblical  Views  of  Sexual- 
ity— Exaggeration  of  Sexuality  on  the  Carnal  Side — Modern 
Efforts  to  Regulate  Sexuality   6 

CHAPTER    II. 

Analysis  of  Sex  Love. 

What  is  Sex  Love? — Illustration  from  the  Rainbow — Psychological 
Elements  in  Love — Abnormal  Developments — Two  Historical 
Instances — Ethical  Aspects  of  Love — Sex  Lives  of  Saints — 
Problems  of  Love 22 

CHAPTER    III. 

Sexuality  in  Childhood. 

Se.xual  Vice — Difficulties  in  Coping  With — x\nalysis  of,  in  Humanity 
— Sexual  Vice  in  Animals — Among  Children — Methods  of  Deal- 
ing With — Hygiene — Moral  Suasion — Teaching — Punishments  .     31 

CHAPTER   IV. 

The  Mixing  of  the  Sexes  in  Schools  and  Institutions. 

Social  Intercourse — Family  Life — Sexual  Repugnance — Co-educa- 
tion— Its  Defects  in  Theory  and  in  Practice — Homosexuality  in 
Schools — Social   Intercourse   in   General    53 

CHAPTER    V. 

The  Battle  of  Chastity  in  the  Adult. 

Morbidity — Sexual  Neurasthenia — Consequences  of  Sexual  Sins — 
Celibacy — Fornication — A  Sophism  and  a  Truth — Necessity  of 
Marriage— Christian    Doctrine   of    Indulgcntia— Self-sacrilice — 

Regulations  in  Certain  Professions — Personal  Religion   62 

(xi) 


xii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   VI. 

Neomalthusianism.  page 

Historical  Aspects  of  the  Question — Economic  Aspect  of — Moral 
Aspects  of — Analogies  of — Methods — Dangers — Principle  of 
Christian  Freedom — Neomalthusianism  in  New  Zealand — Fam- 
ily Life 106 

CHAPTER   Vn. 

Sexual  Promiscuity. 

A  Definition  of  Impurity — Promiscuity — Biblical  Views  of  Promis- 
cuity— Concubinage — Antenuptial  Relations 128 

CHAPTER   VIII. 

Prostitution. 

General  View  of  the  Situation — A  Dialogue — The  Sacking  of  a  City 
— The  Victorious  Soldiery — The  Women  in  the  City — Moral 
Grades  of  Women — The  Phenomenon  of  Prostitution — Its 
Place  in  the  Social  Sex  Process — Women  in  Defense  of  their 
Honor — The  Main  Ground  of  their  Defense — Women's  Atti- 
tude to  Marriage  and  to  Prostitution 138 

CHAPTER    IX. 
Prostitution  and  the  Social  Sex  Process. 

Comparative  Ethics — The  Evolutionary  Ethical  Process — Increasing 
Rationality  of  Collective  Sexual  Consciousness — Ethical  Evolu- 
tion of  the  Masculine  Impulse — Transition  from  Fear  to  Volun- 
tary Self-control — Ethical  Evolution  of  the  Feminine  Impulse — 
Women's  Growing  Enlightenment  on  the  Ethics  of  Sex — Self- 
control  and  Sympathy  the  Fruits  of  the  Evolution  of  Sexual 
Morality 149 

CHAPTER    X. 
Prostitution  and  Rescue  Work. 

Treatment  of  Prostitutes  in  the  Christian  Roman  Empire — Attitude 
of  Christian  Fathers  to  Prostitution — Prostitution  in  Medieval 
Europe — Rise  of  Rescue  Work — Attitude  of  Modern  Society 
toward  Prostitution — Rescue  Work  on  its  Negative  Side — 
Forel's    Description    of    the    Fate    of    Prostitutes — Ideals    of 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

PAGB 

Rescue  Work — The  Earlier  Ascetic  Ideal — Its  Insufficiency — 
The  Modern  Positive  Ideal Scientific  Study  of  the  Pros- 
titute— The  Worker  of  Mercy  at  Work — Social  Value  of  the 
Rescue  Workers— The  "White  Slave  Traffic"   158 

CHAPTER   XI. 

Venereal  Disease  and  Legislation. 

Statement  of  the  Question — Modern  Ethical  Thought  and  Prosti- 
tution— The  Problem  of  Reglementation — The  Morals  Service 
— A  Policy  Outlined — Venereal  Diseases  and  Marriage  171 

CHAPTER   XII. 

Further  Applications  of  the  Principle  of  Responsibility. 

Suspected  Increase  of  Immorality  in  Australia — Causes  of  Increase 
— Some  Proposed  Remedies — Age  of  Consent — Removal  of  Dis- 
abilities from  Illegitimates — Legitimation — Registration  in  the 
Man's  Name 191 

CHAPTER   XIII. 

Marriage. 

Various  Doctrines  of  Marriage^Rationale  of  Sexual  Desire — In- 
tercourse During  Pregnancy— Aversion  During  Menstruation 
— Control  of  Desire — Frigidity — Mutual  Consideration — Hy- 
giene— A  Paralile  Interpreted   202 

CHAPTER    XIV. 

Spiritualized  Sexual  Love. 

Its  History — Its  Basis,  Significance,  and  Place  in  the  Economy 
of  Life  224 

CHAPTER   XV. 

Modesty. 

Origin  and  Purpose  of  Modesty — Biblical  Estimates  of — Modesty 
Among  Women — Woman's  Right  of  Marriage — Woman's 
Special  Sexual  Difficulties 232 


xiv  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   XVI. 

Divorce.  page 

Statement  of  the  Question — Christian  Ideal  of  Marriage — Uncer- 
tainty of  Ecclesiastical  Opinion  on  Divorce — Christ  on  Divorce 
—St.  Paul— Attitude  of  State— Duty  of  Church  in  the  Matter  . .  242 

CHAPTER    XVII. 

Forbidden  Degrees. 

Origin  of  Sexual  Repulsion — Attitude  of  Christianity  toward  In- 
cest— Forbidden  Degrees,  History  of — Matriarchate  and  Patri- 
archate— Ideal  Unity  in  Marriage — Marriage  with  a  Deceased 
Wife's  Sister  Considered 257 

CHAPTER    XVIII. 

The  Sexual  in  Art. 

Condemnation  of  Erotic  Art  Considered — Classical  .\rt — The  Nude 
— Zola's  View — Art  and  Word-painting — -Indecent  Pictures — 
Legislation    274 

CHAPTER    XIX. 

On  the  Nature  and  Ethics  of  Impure  Language. 

Language  and  Convention — History  of  Dirty  Words — The  Test  of 

Motive — Horace  and  Juvenal — St.  Paul  280 

CHAPTER    XX. 

Sexual  Perversions. 

Modern  Investigation  of  this  Obscure  Subject — Causes  of  Perver- 
sions— Sexual  Inversion — Proposed  Toleration  of  Homosexual- 
ity Considered — Masochism — Sadism — Other  Types,  Bestiality. 
Senile  Immorality — Sterilization   284 

CHAPTER    XXI. 

The  Evolution  of  Sexual  Morality. 

Evolution  of  Moral  Ideas — Prehuman  Stage  of  Morality — Growth 
of  Humanity's  Sex  Knowledge — Variability  of  Value-judgments 


CONTENTS.  XV 

PAGE 

— Sex  Morality  in  the  Evolution  of  the  Race  and  of  the  Child 
— The  Religious  Factor — Ethical  Ideals  of  the  Sex  Life  in 
Civilized  Society — Their  Germinal  Principles  in  Primitive 
Society — Statement  of  the  Ideals — The  Manner  of  their  Reali- 
zation— Principles  of  Casuistry — Sex  Morality  in  Relation  to 
Theology  312 

CHAPTER    XXII. 

The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Sexual  Morality. 

Rational  Ethics  and  Religion — Spiritual  and  Supramundane  Origin 
of  Ethical  Religion — Human  Cognition  of  the  Transcendent 
Ethical  Authority — Rights  of  Criticism  in  Ethics — True  Nature 
of  Moral  Action — Autonomy  of  the  Will — Rational  Reception 
of  the  Imperative — Primitive  Commands  were  Negative — Re- 
capitulation— The  Supreme  Ethical  Concept  of  the  Sex  Life — 
The  Cognition  of  Ideas — No  Really  Self-evident  Truths — In- 
tuition— The  Inheriting  and  Estimating  of  Moral  Values — 
Objectivity  of  Moral  Concepts — Their  Perfect  Concrete  Mani- 
festation— The  Metaphysic  of  Ethics  Reveals  God  and  Leads 
to  the  Incarnation  of  Jesus  Christ 334 

CHAPTER    XXIII. 

The  Virgin  Maktyrs. 

Virginity  in  the  New  Testament — The  Virgin  Martyrs  in  Art  and 
History — Virginity  in  Pagan  Rome — The  Christian  Persecutions 
— The  Peril  to  Virginity — Condemnation  of  Christian  Women 
to  the  Lupanaria — Outraging  of  Virgins — The  Spiritual  Per- 
manence of  Virginity — Changes  in  the  Social  Estimate  of  Vir- 
ginity— Survivals  of  Superstition  in  that  Estimate — Formation 
of  a  Deeper  View — The  Virgin's  Aureole  and  the  Conditions 
of  its  Attainment   347 

CHAPTER    XXIV. 

The  Gospel  and  Sex  Relations. 

Asceticism  and  the  Gospel— Tolstoy's  Estimate— Christ's  Attitude 
and  Teaching— St.  Paul— The  Christian  Ideal  of  Marriage— 
The  Atonement  and  Sexual  Sins 3t)3 


xvi  CONTENTS. 

APPENDIX.  PAGE 

Additional  Note  A,   on    Primitive   Marriage    387 

Additional  Note  B,  on  the  Genesis  Narrative  of  the  Fall   400 

Additional  Note  C,  on  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  405 

Additional  Note  D,  on  Masturbation 420 

Additional  Note  E,  on  Circumcision  430 

Additional  Note  F,  on  Nocturnal  Pollution  434 

Additional  Note  G,  on  Patristic  and  Medieval  Attitude  to  Divorce  .  437 

Additional  Note  H,  on  Polygamy  444 

Additional  Note  I.  on  Belief  in  God  453 

The  Two  Fires  456 

Epilogue    457 

Index  of  authors  cited  459 

Index  of  subjects  467 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SEX  PROBLEMS. 


INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER. 

Ethic  of  the  Sexes — Science  of  Sex — Literature  on  Sex  Questions 
— General  Result  of  Present  Inquiry. 

In  a  single  sentence  of  their  book,  two  modern  biologists 
have  given  pregnant  expression  to  one  of  the  most  imperative 
of  present-day  needs.  We  need,  say  they,  a  new  ethic  of  the 
sexes.  In  spite  of  the  vague  and  frequently  petulant  expression 
accorded  to  this  need  in  conversation  and  in  ephemeral  litera- 
ture, it  has  a  real  and  general  existence,  and  it  is  gradually  being 
met.  Such  a  new  ethic  is  being  slowly  evolved  as  the  outcome 
of  the  thoughts  and  labors  of  many,  writing  with  various  mo- 
tives and  with  a  greater  or  less  degree  of  conscientiousness  on 
the  series  of  problems  arising  from  the  physiology  and  psy- 
chology of  sex. 

The  study  of  sex  questions  carries  the  student  into  many 
branches  of  knowledge,  anthropology,  biology,  medicine,  law, 
theology,  and  others.  It  directs  his  inquiring  gaze  toward  the 
lowest  depths  as  well  as  toward  the  most  glorious  heights  of 
human  development.  And  here  it  must  be  said  at  once  that  an 
investigation  of  the  dark  side  of  sexuality  is  inevitable.  ^  The 
composition  of  this  work  on  its  present  scale  would  have  been 
impossible  without  access  being  had  to  scientific  treatises  such 
as  those  of  Havelock  Ellis  and  Krafft-Ebing,  treatises  in  which 
the  sex  life  can  be  seen  as  it  is,  without  disguise ;  and  humanity 
comes  before  the  beholder  in  many  attitudes,  good  and  bad  from 


1  "For  it  is  not  dishonorable  to  know  about  ugly  things,  but  by 
this  means  the  remedy  of  them  is  found,  if  in  a  right  moral  and  intel- 
lectual disposition  one  receives  what  is  said  about  them."  Plato,  Legg. 
635  (paraphrased). 

(1) 


2  INTRODUCTION. 

a  moral  point  of  view,  kneeling  in  prayer,  striving  with  itself, 
disciplining  its  appetites ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  lying  in  unre- 
strained voluptuous  enjoyment,  experiencing  or  seeking  strange 
forms  of  sensuous  excitement,  raving,  raging,  bloody,  ex- 
hausted,— and  naked  always.  Many  of  the  visions  in  the  series 
are  calculated  to  try  the  nerve  even  of  the  trained  student  of 
such  things ;  and  the  present  writer  is  constrained  to  admit,  for 
his  own  part,  that  he  has  shortened  his  studies  on  impure  and 
perverted  sexuality  as  much  as  possible;  that  he  has  confined 
his  study  of  human  sin — for  so  it  must  be  called — within  the 
limits  of  bare  necessity,  and  has  left  the  detailed  investigation 
of  abnormal  conditions  to  those  whose  special  province  it  is. 
Without  contributing  at  this  point  anything  fresh  to  the  con- 
sideration of  the  moral  advantages  or  disadvantages  of  a  scien- 
tific study  of  sex,  the  author  would  merely  accept  the  position 
that  the  sale  of  works  on  abnormal  sexual  conditions  should 
be  as  far  as  possible  regulated  by  law.  However,  a  policy  of 
wholesale  suppression  of  even  this  class  of  work  is  neither 
requisite  nor  feasible  ^ 

The  scientific  study  of  sex  does  indeed  require  for  its 
successful  and  profitable  pursuit  not  merely  the  qualities 
needed  by  other  sciences,  but  peculiar  moral  qualities,  tact, 
caution,  and  forbearance  in  making  known  results,  drawing 
inferences,  and  expressing  opinions.     The  scientist  must  here, 

-  The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  pubhcation  of  special  works  on 
sexual  perversions  would  be  considerably  relieved  if  anthropologists 
generally  would  follow,  and  where  necessary  improve  on,  the  example 
set  by  such  writers  as  Krafft-Ebing  and  Westermarck,  and  render  the 
most  revolting  pieces  of  necessary  evidence  into  Latin.  Here,  too, 
must  be  noticed  a  suggestion  which  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  has  set  forth  with 
his  peculiar  power,  that  a  minimum  price,  and  that  a  high  one,  should 
be  fixed  by  law  for  certain  departments  of  literature  dealing  with  sex 
questions,  and  perhaps  for  certain  classes  of  erotic  art.  In  spite  of 
the  complicated  nature  of  the  problem,  an  approximately  correct  de- 
marcation of  sexual  literature  and  art  unsuitable  for  general  use  might 
conceivably  be  arrived  at,  and  the  output  of  such  productions  might 
be  regulated  either  in  the  manner  indicated  by  Wells,  or  by  the  issue 
of  special  licenses  for  such  sales. 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

as  elsewhere,  amass  and  consider  facts.  It  is  the  just  ground 
of  his  quarrel  with  the  orthodox  moralist  that  the  latter  will 
not  face  facts.  On  the  other  hand,  the  scientific  inquirer  is  at 
times  too  ready  to  look  askance  at  traditional  or  conventional 
ideas  of  sexual  morality,  tO'  speak  impatiently  of  asceticism, 
ecclesiastical  influence,  and  the  like.  True  science  will  pa- 
tiently and  carefully  estimate  the  value  of  these  things.  It 
should  not  be  forgotten  that  in  this  field  of  study  the  question 
whether  the  thinker's  treatment  of  his  subject  becomes  a  dan- 
gerous philosophy  of  vice  or  a  profitable  elucidation  of  diffi- 
culties is  decided  to  a  more  visible  extent  than  in  any  other 
by  the  spirit  in  which  the  work  is  done. 

It  is  the  author's  intention  and  hope,  in  the  present  work, 
to  make  use  of  modern  research  on  sex  problems,  to  consider 
as  carefully  as  possible  the  results  of  such  research,  but  not  to 
exclude  or  unduly  minimize  the  traditional  ideas  current  in 
Christian  society.-^  Many  considerations  independent  of  sex 
questions  strengthen  the  belief  that  in  the  Christian  religion  is 
found  the  key  to  the  problems  of  life.  Consequently,  a  vital, 
progressive  Christianity  cannot  long  be  out  of  harmony  with 
any  part  of  science.  If,  as  here,  it  should  seem  to  be  so,  the 
apparent  discord  is  due  to  an  imperfect  apprehension  of  the 
real  requirements  and  aims  of  one  or  the  other. 

A  science  of  sex,  then,  is  positively  necessary  to  the  under- 
standing and  appreciation  of  Christian  sexual  ethics.  At  pres- 
ent there  is  much  uncertainty  in  men's  minds  about  the  ethical 
ideals  of  sex  which  are  really  of  the  essence  of  Christian 
morality.  Which  are  those  ideals?  How  many  of  the  current 
ideas  about  right  and  wrong  in  the  sex  relation  ought  to  be 
accepted  and  upheld  at  all  costs  by  Christian  people?  And 
what  kind  of  "new  ethic"  of  the  sexes  can  be  accepted  by 
Christians  ? 


3  This  is  F.  W.  Forster's  standpoint  (Sexualethik  und  Sexual- 
padagogik,  Vorwort).  His  veneration  of  tradition  is,  however,  some- 
what excessive,  and  tends  to  preclude  legitimate  criticism.  I  note  with 
interest  his  appreciation  of  the  caution  and  judgment  of  the  Anglican 
Church,  in  its  handling  of  religious  interpretations  and  moral  problems. 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

In  the  present  work,  therefore,  endeavor  is  made  to  ad- 
just the  relations  between  science  and  Christian  thought  in  the 
region  of  sexual  ethics.  The  work  is  not  so  much  a  contribu- 
tion to  the  science  of  sex  as  an  attempt  to  apply  that  science, 
for  the  battles  of  chastity  have  been  fought  too  long  in  the 
dark.  Practical  utility  grounded  on  science  has  been  the  chief 
aim  of  the  present  writer.  The  reader  will  find  in  the  follow- 
ing pages  discussions  of  present-day  problems,  but  must  go 
elsewhere  to  elaborate  scientific  treatises,  like  those  already 
referred  to,  for  the  weighing  of  evidence,  the  discovery  of 
causes,  and  the  investigation  of  origins,  which  have  made  such 
discussions  possible.  It  is  only  here  and  there  in  the  present 
work  that  the  author  has  found  himself  able  to  make  an  orig- 
inal suggestion  or  criticism  in  the  scientific  investigation  of  sex. 

Just  as  a  dull,  thick  wine  may  be  rendered  bright  and 
limpid  by  the  infusion  of  a  draught  containing  fresh  ingredi- 
ents, so  popular  Christian  opinion  on  questions  of  sex,  an  opin- 
ion pure  in  its  moral  essence,  because  in  the  main  inspired  by 
a  desire  for  purity  and  righteousness,  but  too  frequently  be- 
clouded by  prejudice,  ignorance,  and  misconception,  may  be 
cleared  and  gladdened  by  alliance  with  a  true  science  of  sex. 
The  order  in  which  sex  problems  have  here  been  taken  is  to 
some  extent  the  order  in  which  they  usually  appear  in  a  human 
life,  but  in  certain  parts  of  the  book  it  has  not  been  possible 
to  adhere  closely  to  any  definite  arrangement. 

The  book  having  been  written  from  a  man's  point  of  view, 
and  dealing  mainly  with  sexuality  in  men,  a  number  of  ques- 
tions belonging  to  the  sex  life  in  women  have  been  left  alone. 
In  one  chapter  only,  the  anthropological  interest  of  the  subject 
led  the  writer  into  somewhat  closer  and  more  direct  touch  with 
women's  sexual  needs. ^ 

In  considering  the  ethic  of  the  sexes  we  are  compelled  to 
face  conscience  problems  of  which  neither  the  revelation  of 


4  In  the  present  (revised)  edition  a  few  other  of  the  special 
problems  of  women  are  handled ;  but  it  remains  true  that  this  book 
contains  no  systematic  study  of  the  sex  life  in  women. 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

morality  in  the  Bible  nor  the  illuminated  wisdom  of  the  Church 
has  as  yet  offered  definitive  and  satisfactory  solutions.  The 
attainment  of  such  solutions  is  perhaps  reserved  for  future 
generations,  as  the  outcome  of  many  preceding  thought  strug- 
gles, of  unconquered  faith  in  the  Divine  purpose  of  good 
toward  mankind,  of  high  and  sincere  moral  aspirations.  Re- 
marks which  the  writer  trusts  are  instinct  with  caution,  and 
which  must  be  understood  to  be  of  a  tentative  character,  have 
been  made  upon  some  of  these  conscience  problems  in  their 
place.  The  discussion  of  such  points  being  inspired  by  no 
other  motive  than  a  desire  to  discover  truth,  will,  it  is  hoped, 
be  fraught  with  harm  to  no  one ;  and,  in  fine,  the  author  hum- 
bly trusts  that  his  work  will  be  found  neither  a  TrupaKAr/crt?  €k 

irXavq'i  ovhe.  i^  aKa6apaLa<;  ov8k  iv  SdAo).'' 

The  formation  of  a  new  ethic  of  the  sexes  does  not  involve 
any  radical  change  in  present-day  ideas  of  sexual  morality. 
The  new  will  be  recognizable  as  the  continuous  outgrowth  of 
the  old.  It  will  be  found  that  our  inquiry  in  the  main  serves 
to  confirm  the  ethical  notions  upon  which  the  social  systems  of 
modern  Christian  nations  are  based.  Indeed,  such  a  conserva- 
tive tendency  will  appear  in  our  discussions  that  we  shall  even 
find  ourselves  at  times  led  back  to  older  and  more  natural  ideas 
of  sexual  morality  than  those  obtaining  in  modern  civilization. 
We  shall  find  that  sexual  sin  has  a  real  and  manifold  exist- 
ence ;  that  moral  responsibility  is  a  factor  of  paramount  impor- 
tance in  the  sex  life.  But  in  the  progress  of  this  inquiry  it  will 
be  found  that  a  large  element  of  caution  has  to  be  introduced 
into  moral  judgments  once  too  readily  pronounced  upon 
breaches  of  sexual  morality. 

5  1  Thess.  2:3. 


CHAPTER  I. 

General  View  of  Sex  Love. 

Sexual  Love — Its  Intensity — Modesty — Biblical  Views  of  Sexual- 
ity— Exaggeration  of  Sexuality  on  the  Carnal  Side — Modern  Efforts 
to   Regulate    Sexuality. 

Dark  and  formless,  over  the  red  faggots  in  the  Tophet, 
towers  the  mighty  bulk  of  the  idol  of  Moloch,  Lord  of  the 
Baalim. 

As  the  winding  tongues  of  fire  enwrap  his  trunk,  and  leap- 
ing to  his  head,  momentarily  form  a  diadem  of  bright  points 
upon  his  brow,  the  image  seems  to  move,  to  exult,  to  rear  him- 
self aloft  as  a  king  in  the  valley.  In  that  moment  a  wave  of 
life,  expending  itself  with  a  demonic,  resistless  energy,  enters 
into  him — the  life  of  the  male  principle. 

From  his  shoulder,  as  if  flung  into  the  Tophet  by  his  active 
and  potent  will,  the  victims  of  the  sacrifice  fall  into  the  fire- 
waves,  there  to  perish  writhing  in  torture,  or  after  desperate 
struggles  to  emerge,  should  Moloch  relent  so  far,  burned  and 
crippled,  an  augury  of  better  fortune,  purchased  with  exceeding 
pain. 


Perchance  the  priests  of  Moloch  saw  a  deeper  meaning  in 
the  victim's  plunge  into  Tophet's  flames  than  an  augury  or  a 
propitiatory  sacrifice.  The  sacrifices  in  the  Valley  of  Ben  Hin- 
nom  are  to  us  a  lurid  symbolic  picture  of  the  dangers  which 
surround  the  sexual  relation.  They  represent  the  tragedy  of 
millions  of  human  lives,  the  plunge  into  the  fiery  heat  of  sexual 
passion. 

In  most  races  modesty  amounting  to  fear  surrounds  the 
sexual  act.  For  an  estimate  of  the  widespread  notion  of  the 
inherent  impurity  of  sexual  relations,  the  reader  is  referred 
(6) 


GEXERAL   VIEW    OF    SEX    LOVE.  7 

to  Westermarck.i  So  powerful,  so  instinctive  is  this  feeling 
of  distrust  that  it  must  not  be  considered  as  merely  delusive, 
destitute  of  any  benefit  to  mankind.  The  obvious  and  great 
liability  of  the  sexual  instinct  in  humanity  to  corruption  ren- 
ders it  necessary  that  some  strong  counteracting  influence 
should  be,  as  it  were,  inborn  in  the  moral  consciousness  of 
men.  Thus  a  notion  which  has  arisen  containing  elements  of 
error,  which  students  of  morals  ought  to  endeavor  to  appre- 
ciate at  their  right  value,  is  nevertheless  useful  in  that  it 
naturally  prepares  men's  minds  for  the  watchful  reception  of 
just  teaching  on  the  ethics  of  sex.^ 

Whence  had  the  idea  of  the  inherent  sinfulness  of  sexual 
relations  its  origin?  Various  conjectures  have  been  made  on 
this  point.  Westermarck  finds  its  origin  in  the  instinctive  sex- 
ual repugnance  developed  between  those  who  are  members  of 
the  same  household  from  early  childhood.  Letourneau  sug- 
gests that  the  notion  that  wives  were  personal  property,  or, 
more  strictly,  the  crudity  of  this  notion  in  primitive  times,  and 
the  consequent  rigorous  exaction  of  chastity  from  women  were 
the  chief  factors  of  this  idea.  Havelock  Ellis  shows  that  in 
humanity  sexual  modesty,  which  includes  the  notion  under 
discussion,  is  the  outgrowth  of  an  agglomeration  of  fears,  the 
earliest  and  most  powerful  of  which  in  the  female  is  the  fear 
connected  with  sexual  periodicity.  The  female,  afraid  of 
injury,  protects  herself  against  the  undesired  advances  of  the 
male.  The  circumstance,  too,  that  the  sexual  center  adjoins 
the  excretory  center,  when  viewed  in  connection  with  develop- 
ing ideas  of  disgust,  must  have  contributed  greatly,  according 
to  Ellis,  to  the  ethical  isolation  in  men's  thoughts  of  the  sexual 
functions.  Further,  the  development  in  humanity  of  a  varied 
ritual  surrounding  the  sexual  relation,  increased  the  sense  of 


1  Hist,  of  Human  Marriage,  pp.  151f.  Q.  H.  Ellis,  Studies,  vol. 
vi,  ch.  iv :  Crawley,  art.  Chastity,  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  of  Rel.  and 
Ethics. 

2  Q.  Crawley,  The  Mystic  Rose,  p.  484,  "This  sensitive  attitude 
would  seem  to  have  assisted  the  natural  development  of  man." 


8  GENERAL   VIEW    OF    SEX   LOVE. 

modesty  in  regard  to  it.  And  these  various  fears,  arising  from 
periodicity,  disgust,  ritual,  convention,  the  idea  of  property, 
and  the  domiciHar  instinct  of  repugnance,  roused  emotions  to 
which  the  familiar  phenomenon,  of  the  blush  gives  expression, 
and  upon  which  it  reacts  with  a  stimulating  and  auxiliary 
power.  3 

The  causes  enumerated,  however,  hardly  take  us  far 
enough  back  in  the  history  of  the  notion  under  consideration. 
The  suggestions  of  Letourneau  and  Westermarck,  with  several 
of  the  factors  emphasized  by  Havelock  Ellis,  must  indeed  be 
accepted  as  contributing  causes  to  the  establishment  and  exten- 
sion of  this  notion  in  humanity,  but  they  do  not  disclose  its 
primary  origin.  The  fact  that  some,  at  least,  of  the  lower 
animals  in  a  wild  state  *  manifest  shyness  about  copulation 
shows  that  the  sense  of  sexual  modesty  originated  amid  yet 
more  primitive  emotions  than  those  of  which  these  anthropolo- 
gists describe  the  growth  and  intensification.  Havelock  Ellis, 
in  his  suggestion  of  sexual  periodicity,  comes  nearer  tO'  the  root 
of  the  matter ;  yet  even  periodicity,  which,  as  he  notes,  affects 
chiefly  the  female,  is  hardly  a  sufficient  basis  for  an  ethical 
notion  entertained  by  men  as  strongly  and  as  widely  as  by 
women. 

It  appears,  then,  that  the  primary  origin  of  this  notion 
must  be  sought  in  the  amatory  conflicts  of  the  males.^     That 

3  Westermarck,  Hist,  of  Hum.  Marriage,  2d  ed.,  pp.  155,  541 ; 
Letourneau,  Evol.  of  Marriage,  Pref.,  p.  10  and  ch.  iv;  H.  Ellis, 
Studies,  vol.  ii. 

4  Domestic  animals,  which  for  unnumbered  generations  have  been 
for  the  most  part  freed  from  violent  interference  in  the  performance 
of  their  sexual  functions,  and  frequently  cannot  choose  privacy  for 
copulation,  have  lost  the  instinct  of  concealment;  just  as,  analogously, 
their  periodicity  has  been  disturbed  (Geddes  and  Thomson,  Sex, 
p.  147). 

5 1  now  observe  that  this  theory  of  the  origin  of  modesty  had 
been  already  formed  by  a  French  scientist  in  the  lifetime  of  Robert 
Browning,  who  gave  it  poetic  expression  (Bloch,  The  Sexual  Life  of 
Our  Time,  p.  132,  n.  1).  Cp.,  on  the  whole  subject,  R.  Michels,  Sexual 
Ethics,  pp.  60f¥. 


GENERAL   VIEW    OF    SEX    LOVE.  9 

these  conflicts  should  rapidly  generate  a  desire  on  the  part  of 
two  animals  to  copulate  in  secrecy,  without  fear  of  disturb- 
ance or  of  attack,  and  that  from  this  seeking  after  secrecy 
from  motives  of  fear  should  arise  an  instinctive  feeling  that 
the  sexual  act  must  always  be  hidden,  is  a  natural  enough 
sequence.  And  since  it  is  not  a  long  step  between  thinking  of 
an  act  as  needing  concealment  and  thinking  of  it  as  wrong,  it  is 
easily  conceivable  that  sexual  intercourse  comes  to  be  regarded 
as  a  stolen,  and  therefore  in  some  degree,  a  sinful  pleasure. 

Havelock  Ellis  describes  the  rise  of  similar  ideas  in  regard 
to  eating:  "Whenever  there  is  any  pressure  on  the  means  of 
subsistence,  as  among  savages  at  some  time  or  other  there 
nearly  always  is,  it  must  necessarily  arouse  a  profound  emotion 
of  anger  and  disgust  to  see  another  person  putting  into  his 
stomach  what  one  might  just  .as  well  have  put  into  one's  own. 
.  .  .  As  social  feeling  develops,  a  man  desires  not  only  to 
eat  in  safety,  but  also  to  avoid  being  an  object  of  disgust,  and 
to  spare  his  friends  all  unpleasant  emotions." 

Competition  in  respect  of  the  means  of  satisfying  hunger 
caused  the  act  of  satisfying  it  to  be  looked  upon  as  something 
to  be  ashamed  of.  And  this  principle  of  interpretation  clearly 
holds  good  in  regard  to  the  phenomena  of  sexual  modesty.  To 
satisfy  the  sexual  appetite  in  presence  of  others  arouses  that 
appetite  in  them ;  such  an  act  is  therefore  not  only  dangerous 
to  safety,  but  shamefully  egotistic. 

But  why  has  this  notion  of  modesty,  largely,  though  by  no 
means  entirely,  ceased  in  the  matter  of  eating  and  become  in- 
tensified in  the  other  direction?  For  one  thing,  the  necessity 
of  eating  is  of  far  more  frequent  recurrence  than  the  other 
necessity,  and  the  development  of  methods  of  production 
largely  decreased  the  strain  of  competition,  at  any  rate  with 
respect  to  the  immediate  procuring  of  a  meal.  Secrecy  in  re- 
gard to  so  common  an  act  as  eating  could  not  be  maintained 
with  any  sort  of  consistency.  Further,  the  sacramental  meals 
which  form  a  part  of  so  many  rituals  would  have  the  opposite 
effect  of  making  this  act  a  social  and  public  one.     The  only 


10  GENERAL   VIEW    OF    SEX    LOVE. 

factor  in  the  development  of  sexual  ethics  which  might  have 
powerfully  combated  the  original  impulse  to  concealment  was 
religious  prostitution,  but  this  custom  was  largely  discredited, 
as  being  in  irreconcilable  conflict  with  the  monogamic  ideal, 
that  prehistoric  institution  which  has  established  for  the  sex 
life  in  humanity,  at  once  the  earliest  and  the  highest  standard;^ 
and  it  never  acquired  sufficient  influence  to  stay  the  general 
current  of  feeling  in  regard  to  the  sexual  act. 

It  should  be  noted,  further,  that  religious  prostitution  did 
not  wholly  dispense  with  privacy  in  sex  love.  In  the  West 
African  prostitution,  whilst  the  preliminaries  of  the  act  may  take 
place  with  open  doors,  these  are  closed  to  hide  the  act  itself.''^ 

Crawley,  in  The  Mystic  Rose,  following  Dr.  J.  G.  Frazer, 
indicates  the  desire  for  the  security  of  solitude  as  the  first  step 
in  the  evolution  of  the  sense  of  sinfulness  now  under  consid- 
eration. He  also  describes  the  operation  of  another  factor,  the 
primitive  fear  of  the  unknown  and  presumably  supernatural 
influences  surrounding  sexual  functions.  From  this  fear  arose 
the  great  system  of  sexual  taboos,  under  which  the  sense  of  in- 
herent sinfulness  in  sexual  relations  receives  ethical  direction 
and  extension — not  necessarily  right  direction  or  extension  at 
any  particular  stage,  early  or  late,  of  human  development. 

We  see,  in  fact,  that  there  has  arisen  in  the  primitive  mind 
a  dual  fear  surrounding  the  sexual  relation — a  fear  of  oft'end- 
ing  man,  which  is  the  root  of  altruism,  and  another  fear  which, 
as  known  to  anthropological  science,  is  appropriate  to  a  dim 
and  superstitious  apprehension  of  Divinity.  This  latter  fear  is 
the  root  of  self-control  and  regulation  in  the  sex  life.     Casual 


^  Woods  Hutchinson,  in  an  article  in  the  Contemporary  Review 
for  October,  1904,  adduces  much  interestmg  evidence  of  monogamous 
habits  in  the  lower  creation.  Monogamy  had  therefore  appeared  in 
the  biological  series  before  the  advent  of  man ;  and  the  researches  of 
VVestermarck  have  gone  far  to  establish  this  form  of  marriage  as  the 
primitive  one  in  humanity.  (See,  further,  Howard,  Hist,  of  Matri- 
monial Institutions,  i,  96ff.,  141,  150,  151,  201f. ;  and  Additional  Note  A 
on  Primitive  Marriage.) 

■!■  Bloch,  Die  Prostitution,  Bd.  I,  p.  17. 


GENERAL   VIEW    OF    SEX   LOVE.  H 

and  reckless  sexual  intercourse  is  abhorrent  to  primitive  man. 
He  can  only  gratify  his  sexual  appetite  when  he  has  satisfied 
certain  taboos.  In  the  region  of  these  ideas  the  Divine  Will 
respecting  sexual  union  is  revealed  to  man.^ 

In  making  the  attempt  to  understand  the  growth  of  this 
notion  of  the  sinfulness  of  sexual  relations,  reference  was  made 
in  the  first  edition  to  the  metaphysical  problem  of  the  origin 
of  moral  evil  and  its  action  upon  the  evolution  of  ideas  in 
regard  to  sexual  functions.  I  feel,  however,  that  such  a  theo- 
logical discussion  as  can  alone  do  justice  to  this  problem  is  out 
of  place  here ;  and  limit  myself  to  the  observation  that,  in  rela- 
tion to  humanity,  evil  is  objective ;  it  is  actual,  not  merely 
notional ;  and  we  may  have  to  conceive  of  the  Creative  Intelli- 
gence as  willing  to  mature  a  perfect  ethic  of  the  sexes''  in  con- 


^  Ct^.  Puglisi,  II  problema  morale  (Bilychnis,  fasc.  ix,  p.  195). 
To  the  question  whether,  at  a  definite  moment  in  the  early  life 
of  the  human  race,  a  revelation  of  the  ethic  of  marriage  was  given, 
we  shall  return  later.  It  may  be  observed  here,  by  anticipation,  that 
according  to  both  natural  and  revealed  morality,  monogamy  is  placed 
before  man  as  the  true  ideal  of  his  sexual  relations.  And  in  studying 
sexual  customs  and  institutions,  the  Christian  thinker  will  estimate 
their  ethical  value  in  part  according  as  they  develop  the  sex  ethic  in 
the  direction  of  this  ideal  or  have  an  adverse  tendency.  Some  thinkers, 
it  may  be  added,  are  satisfied  with  the  conception  of  a  primitive  revela- 
tion given  through  wholly  subjective  processes,  by  the  supreme  reason 
immanent  in  human  reason.  In  any  case,  Tennant's  conclusion  is 
sound :  "It  will  perhaps  be  wise  for  theology  to  include  under  the 
term  'sin'  immorality  that  is  not  a  conscious  breach  of  the  right  rela- 
tionship with  any  superhuman  power,  and,  a  fortiori,  all  such  as  is  not 
a  conscious  breach  of  communion  with  the  only  true  God."  (Tennant, 
The  Concept  of  Sin,  p.  23f.;  cp.  id,.  The  Fall  and  Original  Sin,  p.  85; 
also  p.  78,  where  Reville  is  cited ;  and  see  Additional  Note  A  on 
Primitive  Marriage.) 

9C/>.  Tennant,  The  Concept  of  Sin  (Cambridge,  1912),  p.  147: 
"It  is  the  law  of  our  nature  that  the  'carnal  affections'  do  not 
spontaneously  die  as  the  things  belonging  to  the  spirit  begin  to 
live  and  grow  in  us.  It  is  conceivable  that  this  might  have  been  so 
ordered;  that  in  so  far  as  the  functions  of  the  lower  of  our  endow- 
ments could  be  superseded  by  the  exercise  of  reason  and  will,  they 
should  disappear  as  do  certain  bodily  organs  in  the  development  of 
the  embryo.     But  as  a  matter  of  fact  this  is  not  so." 


12  GENERAL   VIEW    OF    SEX   LOVE. 

ditions  other  than  those  of  which  we  have  experience ;  and  of 
the  actual  evolution  of  sexual  morality  as  distorted  and  vitiated 
by  the  introduction  of  an  element,  or  action  of  a  force,  alien 
to  the  primal  intention. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  influence  of  the  sexual 
taboos,  tending  to  a  strict  demarcation  of  the  sexes  and  to  an 
ascetic  view  of  sexual  relations,  was  early  modified  by  mutual 
sympathy  between  the  sexes.  Primitive  man  discovers  that 
contact  with  woman  is  not  always  dangerous ;  sometimes  it  is 
beneficial. 1'^  Further,  the  phenomena  of  courtship  and  attrac- 
tion are  yet  more  primitive  than  the  early  taboos,  and  these 
practices  tend  to  promote  vigorous  animal  feeling  about  sexual 
relations,  and  to  counteract  superstition  and  asceticism. 

Anthropology  thus  directs  us  to  the  idea  of  a  sexuality  in 
which  are  blended  the  elements  of  healthy  animal  passion  and 
moral  self-restraint;  of  enjoyment  and  of  sacrifice;  of  self- 
assertion  and  of  altruism. 

It  appears,  then,  that  the  notion  of  the  inherent  impurity 
of  sex  relations  is  not  to  be  uncritically  or  superstitiously  enter- 
tained. Both  ancient  and  modern  thinkers,  as  Plato  and  Weis- 
mann,  have  found  in  catabolism,  one  of  the  great  principles  un- 
derlying the  manifestations  of  sex,  an  especial  source,  if  not 
the  chief  source  of  progress. ii  Plato  expresses  this  truth  in 
allegorical  guise,  saying  that  "poverty  is  the  mother  of  love."i- 

It  is  from  sex,  too,  according  to  many  writers, ^"^  that  all 
ideas  of  material  beauty  derive  their  primary  impulse.  Nor 
is  anything  to  be  said  in  disparagement  of  a  philosophy  of 
beauty  which  undertakes  the  consideration  and  analysis  of 
esthetic  conceptions  and  physical  charm.  It  is  helpful  as  far 
as  it  goes.  But  there  should  be  a  recognition  of  the  incom- 
pleteness of  its  range  of  thought.     Conceivably,  it  may  become 


1*'  Crawley,  The  Mystic  Rose,  p.  202. 

11  C>.  Bloch,  The  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time,  pp.  10,  92. 

12  Sympos.  xxiii. 

13  See   the    opinions   collected   and    discussed   by   Havelock    Ellis, 
Studies,  vol.  iv,  pp.  136ff. 


GENERAL  VIEW   OF   SEX   LOVE.  13 

morally  dangerous  if  it  remains  exclusively  materialistic;  if 
its  adherents,  in  their  rapt  contemplation  of  what  is  visibly 
attractive  in  nature,  in  humanity,  or  in  their  artistic  repre- 
sentations, ignore  the  worthier  types  and  developments  of 
beauty.  For  to  achieve  completeness,  this  reasoning,  that  sex 
is  the  mundane  origin  of  conceptions  of  beauty,  must  be  car- 
ried on  into  the  moral  sphere.  To  say  nothing  of  chastity,  such 
manifestations  of  moral  beauty  as  courage,  self-sacrifice,  meek- 
ness, patience,  gentleness,  have  an  easily  traceable  connection 
with  the  sex  life  and  its  activities. 

There  is  an  objective,  ideal  element  in  beauty,  recognized 
in  the  material  region  by  writers  like  Stratz  and  Ellis ;  and 
on  the  higher  side,  made  the  fulcrum  of  his  spiritual  teaching 
by  Plato,  who  in  the  Phsedrus  and  Symposium  chose  beauty  as 
the  idea  mediate  between  the  passion  of  love  in  its  sensuous 
aspect,  and  the  higher  enthusiasms  which  direct  the  human 
spirit  toward  eternal  aims. 

One  department,  then,  of  the  science  of  sex,  is  certainly 
the  study  of  beauty;  and  the  mind  which  would  aim  at  any 
degree  of  completeness  in  that  study,  must  endeavor  to  view 
the  various  forms  of  beauty,  animal,  esthetic,  and  spiritual,  in 
their  true  perspective. 

The  idea  of  the  commingling  of  the  two  principles,  male 
and  female,  in  nature,  was  not  necessarily,  though  in  history 
it  was  frequently,  productive  of  an  immoral  worship  or  a  de- 
grading symbolism.  The  prophets  of  Israel  use  this  conception 
to  illustrate  some  of  their  highest  ethical  teaching.  They  do 
not  shrink  from  symbolizing  the  communion  of  Jahweh  with 
His  people,  a  spiritual  union  of  fathomless  profundity  and 
power,  under  the  figure  of  a  marriage  between  Him  and  His 
land.     (Isa.  62:5;  Ezek.  16;  Hos.  1,  2,  3.)^-^ 


14  There  is  no  need  to  assume,  as  is  done  by  G.  A.  Smith  in  his 
commentaries  on  Isaiah  and  Hosea,  that  the  imagery  is  so  framed  as 
to  contain  no  adumbration  of  the  sexual  relation  on  its  physical  side. 
Such  an  interpretation  is  tinged  with  Manich?eanism,  and  impoverishes 
the  imagery  of  the  nuptials  between  Jahweh  and  Israel.     Rather  it  is 


14  GENERAL  VIEW   OF   SEX   LOVE. 

The  innocence  of  the  sexual  passion  per  se  is  frequently 
and  sometimes  impressively  recognized  in  the  Bible  (Gen.  29: 
17,  18;  Ps.  45  :  11)  ;  its  purely  sensuous  character  being  elevated 
and  disciplined  in  humanity  by  faithful  monogamy  (Gen.  2:  24; 
Canticles).  Even  the  heavenly  word  dyaTr?;,  a  word  for  which 
revealed  religion  has  a  peculiar  fondness,  even  if  it  was  not 
actually,  as  a  scholar  has  said,  "born  within  the  bosom  of 
revealed  religion,"  may,  like  the  corresponding  Hebrew  word 
ahabhah,  spring  from  an  earthly  root,  a  root  signifying  physi- 
cal desire  or  aspiration.  In  Canticles  it  is  used  of  the  power- 
ful sexual  longing,  no  doubt  to  be  considered  as  governed  by 
the  underlying  ethical  motive  of  this  poem.  In  other  passages 
it  and  its  verb  are  used  even  of  sinful  love  (II  Sam.  13 :  1 ; 
Lam.  1:2;  Ezek.  16).  In  the  evolution  of  language  it  took 
a  higher  place  than  €/3ws,  which  perhaps  on  account  of  the 
degraded  sensuality  so  largely  associated  with  it,  is  not  found 
in  the  New  Testament,  but  the  verb  dyaTrai/  retains  even  there 
a  purified  sexual  application  (Eph.  5:25,  28,  33).  The  state- 
ment in  Grimm's  N.  T.  Lexicon,  s.  v.  <i>ikiw  that  ayairdoi  is  not 
and  can  not  be  used  of  sexual  love  is,  as  the  American  editor 
points  out,  inaccurate. 

It  must  not,  however,  be  forgotten  that  there  is  another 
circle  of  ideas  in  the  Bible  respecting  the  sexual  relation,  ideas 
in  which  appear  a  reflection  of  the  sentiment  already  alluded 
to,  that  this  relation  on  its  carnal  side  is  tainted  with  moral 
impurity.  Thus  it  has  been  suggested  that  the  narrative  in 
Genesis  of  the  plucking  of  the  Forbidden  Fruit  is  a  symbolic 
representation  of   the  act  of  sexual  intercourse.     I   have  no 

a  most  gracious  condescension  to  the  moral  needs  of  humanity  that  the 
love  of  God  for  man  is  imaged  as  gathering  up  into  itself  and  sancti- 
fying every  part  of  man,  all  his  instincts,  emotions  and  activities.  But 
in  the  prophetic  religion  of  Israel  this  figure  is  not  taken  out  of  its 
proper  region,  the  region  of  imagery.  All  attempts  to  transfer  it  into 
the  region  of  material  action — attempts  such  as  issued  in  gross  and 
licentious  misconception  among  the  heathen  of  Western  Asia — are  pro- 
hibited by  the  prophetic  teaching.  The  figure  is  employed  too  in  the 
New  Testament  (Bousset  on  Apoc.  19:7). 


GENERAL   VIEW    OF    SEX    LOVE.  15 

doubt  that  this  is  the  correct  interpretation,  and  discuss  it 
more  fully  farther  on.^'*  It  is  as  if,  to  the  writer  of  this 
narrative,  the  moral  disease  seizes  most  readily  upon  the 
sexual  nature  of  all  parts  of  the  human  subject.  Allusion 
is  made  elsewhere  to  the  taboo  ou  the  intercourse  of  the 
sexes  1^, — a  practice  which  points  to  a  notion  of  impurity  in- 
herent in  the  act.  Further,  in  Hebrew  thought,  not  less  than  in 
the  thought  of  other  nations,  as  their  language  occasionally 
testifies,  a  certain  shame  akin  to^  the  above-mentioned  idea 
attaches  to  nakedness.^"  There  is  certainly  a  deep  significance 
in  the  fact  that  this  view  of  the  sexual  relation,  as  well  as  the 
contrasted  one,  finds  a  place  in  the  Bible. 

But  by  far  the  profoundest  spiritual  message  contained 
in  the  Scriptures,  in  relation  to  sex,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
legendary  but  vastly  significant  narratives  of  Our  Lord's 
conception  and  birth.  We  shall  deal  with  this  revelation 
separately.  18 

The  ascetic  idea  passed  into  Christianity,  and  exercised  at 
one  time  a  greater  influence  than  the  human  and  rational  view 
of  sex.  There  were  gradations  of  opinion,  illustrated  by  the 
thorough-going  depreciation  of  the  phenomenon  of  sex  found 
in   certain    sects   and   unorthodox    circles,!^    and   by    Catholic 


1"'  See  Additional  Note  B  on  the  Genesis  Narrative  of  the  Fall. 
The  story  of  the  angelic  marriages  in  Gen.  6  has  been  regarded  as  an 
alternative  tradition  of  the  entrance  of  evil  into  the  world.  But 
although  this  mythological  fragment  was  largely  exploited  in  that 
connection  by  late  Jewish  and,  following  it,  Christian  speculation  {e.g., 
Justin,  2  Apol.,  5.  Cp.  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Ethics,  vol.  iv,  art.  De- 
mons and  Spirits,  p.  78b),  the  unions  are  not  regarded,  in  the  original 
story,  as  immoral  or  as  productive  of  evil.  (C/'.  G.  Langin,  Die 
biblischen  Vorstellungcn  voni  Teufcl,  pp.  llflf.) 

iGSee  Ex.  19:15;  I  Sam.  21:5;  Deut.  23:10;  II  Sam.  11:11. 
and  the  discussions  of  these  passages  in  W.  R.  Smith,  Religion  of  the 
Semites,  Note  C,  and  the  Commentaries  of  Driver  and  H.  P.  Smith. 

'".Apoc.  3:4,  18;  16:15,  and  frequently  in  the  O.  T.  Prophets; 
cp.  Driver  on  Ex.  28:42. 

1*^  See  Additional  Note  C  on  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Our  Lord. 

'^Von    Dobschiitz,    Christian    Life    in   the    Primitive    Church,   pp. 


16  GENERAL   VIEW   OF    SEX   LOVE. 

Utterances  of  the  same  feeling  and  tendency  as  these,  though 
separable  from  them  on  logical  grounds  ;-0  up  to  the  better 
informed  and  more  sympathetic  estimates,  represented  spar- 
ingly in  ancient  and  copiously  in  modern  Christianity,  of  the 
sexual  activities.  It  may  be  observed  that  the  systematizing, 
for  Christian  thought,  of  the  sense  of  the  inherent  sinfulness 
of  sex  relations,  was  so  largely  due  to  Augustine,  as  has  been 
shown  with  admirable  clearness  by  Harnack,-i  that  some 
writers22  have  even  made  the  great  African  Father  respon- 
sible for  its  existence.  Its  source,  however,  lies,  as  we  have 
seen,  immeasurably  farther  back  in  the  world-process. 

The  ascetic  estimate  of  the  sex  process  was  strengthened 
by  being  combined  with  the  doctrine  of  original  sin.  This 
development  was  indeed  largely  due  to  Augustine;  and  it 
acquired  so  strong  a  hold  of  medieval  thought  that  even  Luther 
could  not  free  himself  of  it.  He  fell  back  under  its  influence 
in  his  later  years,  and  taught  that  sexual  relations,  though  not 
impure  in  idea,  were  so  in  fact  owing  to  the  accidental  (per 
accidens)  association  with  them  of  the  taint  of  original  sin. 
There  has  been  much  controversy  in  Germany  over  Luther's 
attitude  to  sex;  but  Bloch  has  shown  that  it  was  hesitating 
and  finally  in  some  measure  reactionary.--'^  The  really 
potent,   formative  factors  in  this  pessimistic,  ascetic  view  of 


39ff. ;  Bishop  John  Wordsworth,  The  Ministry  of  Grace,  pp.  218f. ; 
A.  J.  Maclean  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Ethics,  vol.  iii,  p.  493a ;  G.  Cross 
(ibid.),  p.  273. 

-'^  Sanchez,  De  Matrim,  Sacr.  L.  ix,  disp.  i.  J.  Miiller,  Die 
Keuschheitsideen  in  ihrer  geschichtlichen  Entwickelung  (ed.  2),  is 
certainly  wrong  in  saying  (p.  58)  that  Catholic  Christendom  held  aloof 
from  exaggerations  in  the  estimate  of  chastity. 

21  Quoted  by  Bloch,  Die  Sexualethik  des  Aiigustinus  (Die  Pros- 
titution, Bd.  i,  pp.  642f.).  Harnack  exposes  the  logical  defects  of 
Augustine's  teaching. 

22  See  C.  H.  Parez,  The  Sinister  Legacy  of  Augustine,  a  review 
in  The  Modern  Churchman,  Dec,  1911,  of  Allin's  Augustinian  Revolu- 
tion in  Theology. 

22a  Zu  Luther's  Sexualethik,  in  Die  Neue  Gen.,  Jahrg.  9,  Heft  11. 


GENERAL   VIEW    OF    SEX   LOVE.  17 

sex  are,  first,  the  instinct  of  concealment  already  described; 
second,  the  lassitude  ensuing  on  sexual  activity;  third,  the 
natural  weariness  which  men  feel,  with  advancing  years,  about 
the  things  of  this  life.  The  first  two  factors  operate  in  the  lower 
creation ;  "post  coitum  omne  animal  triste,"  is  a  general  maxim. 
Theologians  would  surely  hesitate  about  applying  a  doctrine  of 
original  sin  to  the  sexual  activities  of  animals.  The  truth  is 
that,  as  Kohler  (quoted  by  Bloch)  rightly  perceives,  faith  calls 
us  to  rise  superior  to  these  racial,  social  and  physiological  de- 
pressing influences,  and  to  estimate  the  sex  process  in  accord- 
ance with  higher  ethical  principles,  to  the  consideration  of 
which  we  shall  return  later  in  this  volume ;  and  of  which  one 
of  the  chief  is,  as  Bloch  insists,  mutual'  responsibility. 

Practically,  at  any  rate,  under  present  conditions  of  human 
life  and  progress,  the  sensuous  desire  which  plays  so  important 
a  part  in  investing  with  happiness  the  sexual  relation,  becomes 
frequently  a  dangerous  force,  impelling  men  and  women  into 
abysses  of  disease,  degradation,  and  confusion.  It  may  be 
permissible  to  offer  some  remarks  on  a  few  aspects  of  the 
problem  thus  created. 

Some  writers  entertain  a  hope  that  the  power  of  the  sex- 
ual instinct  is  diminishing  in  civilized  humanity  in  proportion 
as  the  mental  faculties  develop.  The  contention  that  there  is 
such  a  development  is  itself  full  of  difficulty,  but  apart  from  this 
the  foregoing  opinion  might  seem  to  some  extent  commended  by 
the  analogy  of  the  evolution  of  sexual  passion  in  one  sex,  the 
female.  Dr.  Sperry^s^  maintains  that  there  are  degrees  of 
amorousness  among  women,  involving  often  a  large  measure 
of  difference.  It  is  arguable  that  the  average  modern  woman 
is  less  conscious  of  desire  than  the  average  man,  but  there 
may_  have  been  a  time  in  human  history  when  this  was 
not  so.  The  ancient  Hebrews  and  Greeks  seem  to  have  be- 
lieved that  woman  was  more  powerfully  inclined  to  carnal 
pleasure  than  man.    Such  is  the  idea  expressed  in  Gen.  3 :  16.-^ 


--*' Husband  and  Wife,  p.  122. 

-•^  See  Dillmann's  note  in  Ice.  E.  tr. 

2 


18  GENERAL   VIEW    OF    SEX   LOVE. 

It  finds  fiercer  expression  in  compositions  like  the  Lysistrata 
of  Aristophanes,  and  later  in  Juvenal's  Satires,  where  he  at- 
tacks feminine  morals,^^  though  such  passages  do  not  warrant 
a  general  induction. 

But  at  all  events  the  notion  of  a  general  weakening  of  sex- 
ual desire  among  civilized  races  is  as  yet  "not  scientifically 
proved. "-'5  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  much  reason  for 
thinking  that  the  sexual  instinct,  so  far  from  becoming  en- 
feebled, is  more  than  usually  liable  to  excesses  and  perversions 
in  days  when  towns  are  crowded,  when  competition  is  feverish, 
when  nerve-power  is  frequently  subjected  to  abnormal  strain, 
when  the  law  of  heredity  has  had  ample  time  to  develop  the 
evil  forces  in  human  nature,  when  marriage  at  their  own  social 
level  is  out  of  the  reach  of  many,  and  the  economy  of  the 
sexes  becomes  disturbed  mitltis  mirisque  modis.-^  Many  of 
tlie  dark  pictures  of  sexual  immorality  drawn  by  Juvenal, 
including  particularly  the  immorality  of  children-"  (Sat. 
vii,  239,  240),  have  their  reflection  in  our  own  time. 
They  are  the  product,  not  so  much  of  conscious  and  willful 
depravity  of  spirit,  as  of  hard  and  strained  conditions  of  life, 
when  natural  instincts  are  unwholesomely  confined.  Indi- 
viduals of  high  culture  and  great  mental  development  fre- 
quently seem  to  lose  none  of  the  force  of  animal  passion,  though 


24  See  especially  Sat.  VI,  254;  Sat.  XI,  168. 

25  Westermarck,  History  of  Human  Marriage,  p.  150. 

26  Cp.  Westermarck,  Origin  and  Development  of  the  Moral 
Ideas,  vol.  ii,  pp.  466fif. ;  Forel,  Die  Sexuelle  Frage,  p.  224;  Tarnowsky, 
L'Instinct  Sexuel  et  ses  Manifestations  Morbides,  pp.  170f. ;  Moll  and 
H.  Ellis,  in  the  Handbuch  der  Sexualwissenschaften,  p.  607.  Gemelli, 
Quaestiones  Theol.  Medico-pasteralis,  vol.  i,  p.  19,  says :  "Necesse  est 
agnoscere  quod  hodiernis  temporibus  tam  intensi  sunt  stimuli  externi, 
tamque  citius  operantur,  ut  vehementiorem  sexualis  instinctus  actionem 
reddant,  ideas  afferendo,  quae  potenter  agunt  relate  ad  gignendam 
libidinem." 

27  Bloch,  following  Paul  Ree,  denies  that  civilization  is  an  im- 
mediate cause  of  intensifying  the  sexual  impulse,  and  looks  to  cumu- 
lative inheritance  to  explain  such  intensification, — the  fact  of  which 
he  recognizes  (Bloch,  The  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Times,  p.  14). 


GENERAL   VIEW    OF    SEX    LOVE.  19 

they  may  acquire  the  power  of  habitual,  yet  painful,  self-re- 
straint, and  on  the  whole,  in  view  of  all  that  is  known  about 
the  moral  state  of  modern  schools,  armies,  and  towns,  one  can 
hardly  think  that  men,  though  increasingly  prudent  as  regards 
marriage  and  procreation,  find  it  appreciably  easier  than  did 
their  forefathers  absolutely  to  forego  sexual  pleasure.-'^ 

Crawley  observes  (art.  Chastity,  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Ethics, 
vol.  iii,  p.  47Sa)  that  "in  the  struggle  for  existence  a  strong  and  well- 
developed  sexual  instinct  has  obviously  an  important  survival  value,  and 
the  higher  races  are  undoubtedly  to  be  credited  with  its  possession." 
{Cp.  Bloch,  The  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Times,  E.  tr.,  p.  14.)  A  con- 
jecture upon  which  Ellen  Key,  according  to  Forster  (Sexualethik  und 
Sexualpadagogik,  pp.  57ff.),  builds  much  reasoning,  viz.,  that  procrea- 
tion demands  favorable  erotic  conditions,  should  be  viewed  in  the 
light  of  these  facts  of  sexual  evolution.  In  spite  of  Forster's  asser- 
tion that  there  is  no  scientific  justification  of  Ellen  Key's  contention, 
it  may  well  contain  an  element  of  truth;  on  the  analogy  of  conditions 
of  appetite  being  {ceteris  paribus)  favorable  to  digestion  (see 
Gemelli,  op.  cit.,  p.  127),  but,  of  course,  the  erotic  conditions  are  neither 
the  only  nor  even  the  principal  ones,  on  which  the  quality  of  procrea- 
tion depends.  Reason,  will,  and  moral  responsibility  must  ever  have 
their  share  in  determining  procreative  conditions ;  else  diseased  hyper- 
esthesia may  be  mistaken  for  procreative  capacity  (Ellis  and  Moll, 
Handbuch  der  Sexualwissenschaften,  p.  607),  as  diseased  hunger 
might  be  mistaken  for  healthy  appetite. 


-SHavelock  Ellis  (Man  and  Woman,  p.  67)  combats  the  theory 
of  a  decrease  of  physical  amorousness  in  civilized  races.  "There  is 
considerable  evidence  to  show  that  the  sexual  instincts  of  the  lower 
races  are  not  very  intense.  It  would  probably  be  found  that  the  higher 
races  (i.e.,  those  with  the  larger  pelvis)  have  nearly  always  the 
strongest  sexual  impulse."  See  further  for  a  more  recent  and  fuller 
study  of  this  point  by  the  same  writer.  Studies,  vol.  iii,  pp.  214ff. ;  and 
cp.  Howard,  op.  cit.  i,  p.  94,  and  reffs.  There  are  some  exceptions 
among  lower  or  primitive  peoples  to  the  foregoing  generalization,  and 
the  statuettes  and  drawings  of  the  Stone  Age  prove  not  only  that  the 
mystery  of  sex  loomed  large  on  the  horizon  of  primitive  man,  but 
that  he  knew  how  to  stimulate  sexuality  artistically  (Bloch,  Die  Pros- 
titution, Bd.  i,  pp.  46ff.).  But  the  statement  referred  to  seems  justified 
in  the  main  (G,  H.  Berkusky,  Die  sexuelle  Moral  der  Naturvolker,  in 
Die  Neue  Generation,  Jahrg.  6,  Heft  8,  p.  310). 


20  GENERAL   VIEW    OF    SEX   LOVE. 

In  the  progress  of  the  sex  life,  then,  are  various  and 
mighty  elements  of  danger.  Even  when  we  have  got  rid  of 
the  exaggeration  and  high  coloring  with  which,  in  the  popular 
mind,  the  evil  results  of  sexual  excesses  and  misdemeanors 
are  surrounded,  there  is  still  a  large  residuum  of  sad  truth,  a 
mournful  tale  of  lives  which  have  been  consumed  by  entering 
the  fire. 

In  the  thought  and  literature  of  the  day  many  efiforts  are 
made  to  solve  portions  of  the  sexual  problem.  These  are  in- 
spired by  various  motives,  and  have  diflferent  degrees  of  suc- 
cess. But  alas !  how  many  of  these  efiforts  are  in  the  main 
futile  and  inadequate,  even  when  made  in  quarters  whither  we 
might  naturally  look  for  the  industry  in  observing  and  appreci- 
ating phenomena,  the  wisdom,  sympathy,  and  insight  necessary 
for  dealing  with  a  burning  moral  question. 

It  is  needless  to  multiply  instances.  The  published  report 
of  the  deliberations  of  the  Anglican  bishops  on  purity,  at  the 
Lambeth  meeting  in  1897,  will  suffice.  The  motive  underlying 
this  manifesto  is  excellent,  and  certain  parts  of  it  are  useful, 
but  can  we  think  that  this  pronouncement,  consisting  largely 
of  the  familiar  abstract  statements  and  exhortations  on  the 
subject  (one  or  two  of  which,  by  the  way,  as  they  find  expres- 
sion in  this  manifesto,  do  not  convey  the  full  truth),  is  all  the 
guidance  that  men  may  fairly  expect,  amid  the  saddest  per- 
plexity and  in  the  most  exhausting  struggle,  from  leading 
Christian  teachers  who  presumably  have  had  ample  opportuni- 
ties for  studying  human  nature  in  relation  to  morality  and 
religion  ? 

Later  on,  it  may  be  necessary  to  comment  critically  on  a 
detail  of  the  episcopal  manifesto;  though  its  spirit  is  the  same 
as  that  which,  as  the  author  hopes  and  believes,  animates  this 
essay.  Here  we  note  that  the  bishops  make  suggestions  about 
holding  discussions  on  various  phases  of  the  purity  question. 
These  suggestions,  it  may  be,  bear  fruit  in  meetings  for  the 
consideration  of  juvenile  depravity  and  kindred  subjects,  and 
possibly  some  of  these  meetings  have  a  certain  usefulness.     It 


GENERAL   VIEW    OF    SEX    LOVE.  21 

is  not  putting  the  matter  too  strongly  to  urge  that  unless  such 
meetings  result  in  definite  and  vigorous  efforts  in  the  cause  of 
purity ;  unless  they  conduce  to  a  clearer  and  more  sympathetic 
understanding  of  the  real  difficulties  of  the  question,  they  tend 
merely  to  weaken,  confuse,  and  depress  those  who  take  part  in 
them. 

The  present  writer  remembers  a  meeting  in  Christchurch, 
New  Zealand,  called  for  the  purpose  of  considering  the  pre- 
vention of  juvenile  depravity.  Doubtless  in  its  methods,  or  at 
least  in  its  results,  it  was  typical  of  many  similar  ones.  It 
was  well  attended,  and  an  extremely  painful  discussion  took 
place.  The  misdoings  of  the  juveniles  were  painted  in  glaring 
colors,  and  the  evil  results  of  sexual  misdemeanors  were  mor- 
bidly dwelt  upon.  Some  useful  remarks  were  made  by  the 
medical  men  present  upon  the  care  and  management  of  young 
children  in  relation  to  sexual  development,  but  they  fell  flat, 
for  the  most  part,  upon  the  meeting. 

What  resulted?  An  unprofitable  committee,  which  dis- 
banded in  a  few  months,  having  done  practically  nothing  for 
the  improvement  of  public  morals,  and  a  few  vague  proposals 
for  getting  up  entertainments  to  keep  children  off  the  streets 
at  night.  Invaluable  suggestions !  A  magic  lantern,  or  a  set 
of  conjuring  apparatus;  a  game  of  draughts  or  of  bagatelle; 
some  dumb  crambo,  and,  a  possible  cup  of  coffee  and  a  bun — 
to  cope  with  the  strongest  of  the  carnal  passions  that  belong 
to  human  nature. 

Tophet  blazes  unchecked.  Moloch  extends  his  arms  and 
casts  off  from  his  limbs  the  showers  of  scarlet  s])ray.  The 
victims  make  their  plunge  into  the  flames,  and  we  hold  abortive 
committee  meetings ! 


CHAPTER  II. 

Analysis  of  Sex  Love, 

What  is  Sex  Love? — Illustration  from  the  Rainbow — Psycho- 
logical Elements  in  Love — Abnormal  Developments — Two  Historical 
Instances — Ethical  Aspects  of  Love — Sex  Lives  of  Saints — Problems 
of  Love. 

But  before  discussing  measures  for  the  regulation  and 
purification  of  the  sex  Hfe,  it  will  be  well  to  realize,  by  a  psy- 
chological analysis,  what  kind  of  phenomenon  we  are  dealing 
with. 

Sex  love  gives  direct  inspiration  tO'  many  of  the  strongest 
efforts  and  highest  flights  of  the  human  spirit,  and  indirect  in- 
spiration to  much  more.  It  is  the  soul  of  art,  the  life  principle  of 
literature.  It  seeks  expression  everywhere.  Every  one  of  the 
manifold  aspects  of  life,  grave,  gay,  tragic,  comic,  beautiful,  sor- 
did— the  love  passion  is  in  them  all.  Laughter,  smiles,  tears, 
moans  of  pain,  sighs  of  loneliness,  prayers,  curses,  the  very 
life-blood  itself,  are  each  and  all  in  turn  forced  out  of  human- 
ity by  this  heaving,  pulsating  principle  of  life, — the  love 
passion. 

Some  few,  in  the  history  of  human  thought,  have  tried  to 
understand  this  mysterious  thing.  The  philosophers  of  long 
ago  studied  it,  and  proposed  one  answer  or  another  to  the 
question.  What  is  Love?  In  Plato's  philosophy  it  ranks  as  an 
ecstasy,  a  mighty  madness  coming  forth  from  God  upon  the 
human  soul,  and  burning  it  with  an  unearthly  fire.  So,  too, 
does  a  poet  of  Israel  think  of  it.i 

Tertullian,  in  a  once-famous  religious  controversy,  inter- 
preted the  deep  sleep  which  God  caused  to  fall  upon  the  first 
Man,  before  the  creation  of  Woman,  as  the  first  love  ecstasy 


1  Cant.   8:5    (R.   V.):     "Love    is   strong   as   death     .      .      .     tht 
flashes  thereof  are  flashes  of  fire,  a  very  flame  of  the  Lord." 

(22) 


ANALYSIS    OF    SEX    LOVE.  23 

in  humanity,  a  rapture  of  love  in  which  the  man  prophesied 
of  marriage,  of  truth  and  constancy,  and  kindness  and  temper- 
ance and  all  else  of  worth  and  beauty  to  be  found  in  the  nuptial 
union.-  This  interpretation  is  no  doubt  fanciful,  resting 
on  a  mistranslation  in  the  Greek  Bible  of  the  Hebrew  word 
tardemah;  but  it  is  not  fanciful  to  recognize,  between  the  vari- 
ous human  ecstasies  or  raptures,  prophetic,  religious,  or  erotic, 
a  close  connection  and  powerful  interaction.  Religious  litera- 
ture and  love  literature  may  reach  a  mystic  point  at  which  they 
blend.  The  religious  instinct  and  the  love  passion  find  common 
forms  of  expression  in  such  poetry  as  the  Song  of  Songs. 

Out  of  the  millions  of  people  who  can  drink  a  glass  of 
wine,  only  a  few  hundreds  stay  to  consider  how  the  wine 
comes  to  be  what  it  is.  Only  a  few  have  the  patience  to  sub- 
ject it  to  chemical  analysis. 

Just  SQ  with  love.  The  few  who  think  over  it,  who  try 
to  understand  it,  perceive  that  it  can  be  analyzed.  It  is  a 
passion,  a  state,  which  has  several  constituent  elements. 
Several  subtle  influences  are  at  work  upon  the  soul  that  feels  it. 

As  the  best  illustration  of  the  love  passion,  I  choose  that 
which  Professor  Drummond  used  of  ethical  love,-"^  and  F. 
Myers  applied  to  the  nature  of  man  in  general,"*  viz.,  the  ray 
of  light  broken  into  prismatic  colors  by  the  spectrum ;  or,  let 
us  say,  taking  nature's  own  beautiful  example  of  it,  the 
rainbow. 

When  the  atmosphere  presents  the  needful  conditions,  the 
proper  combination  of  bright  and  dark,  of  rain  and  sunshine, 
then  appears  the  rainbow.  The  fewest  light  vibrations  pro- 
duce the  red  ray;  then  follow  other  colors  softly  harmonious; 
finally,  with  the  highest  number  of  vibrations  which  our  eyes 
can  respond  to,  we  perceive  the  violet  ray. 

2  Labriolle,  La  poleniique  antimontaniste  centre  la  prophetic 
extatique  (Revue  d'Histoire  et  de  Littcrature  Religieuses,  xi,  2),  pp. 
nSff. ;  Murillo.  El  Genesis,  p.  287. 

•^  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World. 

4  Human  Personality,  vol.  i,  pp.  17ff. 


24  ANALYSIS    OF    SEX    LOVE. 

Just  so,  the  love  passion  in  humanity  is  made  up  of 
several  emotions.  It  plays  over  the  whole  gamut  of  our  elab- 
orate and  complicated  nervous  system.  It  powerfully  affects 
both  our  physical  and  our  psychical  or  spiritual  being.  It  has 
its  red  ray,  its  violet  ray,  its  intermediate  rays.  One's  life 
progresses;  a  situation  is  created  providing  the  necessary  con- 
ditions; there  is  a  combination  of  tears  and  gladness,  of  the 
grave  and  the  gay ;  and  then  shines  forth  the  love  rainbow. 

Now,  we  have  often  noticed  that  the  general  brightness 
of  a  rainbow  varies  according  to  the  atmospheric  conditions 
which  produce  it.  It  is  sometimes  faint,  sometimes  very  bril- 
liant. So  the  intensity  of  the  love  passion  varies  in  different 
natures,  and  at  different  times  in  the  same  subject.  If  one  is 
young  or  old,  if  one  is  man  or  woman,  if  one's  nervous  sys- 
tem, from  hereditary  causes,  is  highly  sensitive  and  suggest- 
ible,— these  and  other  influences,  like  the  variations  in  the 
state  of  the  atmosphere,  will  in  one  way  or  another  affect  the 
brilliancy  of  the  love  rainbow. 

Suppose  now,  further,  that  as  we  watch  a  rainbow  we 
perceive  some  one  color  becoming  disproportionately  bright, 
and  overpowering  the  other  rays.  We  conjecture  that  this 
peculiar  effect  is  produced  by  an  unusual  combination  of  some 
kind  in  the  sky.  I  do  not  know  that  it  ever  does  thus  happen ; 
but  it  is  imaginable. 

Something  of  this  kind  may  occur  in  the  love  passion. 
A  person  may  be  so  constituted  that  some  one  particular  emo- 
tion, a  constituent  of  love,  may  become  exaggerated,  may 
become  the  dominant  one  in  his  mind.  Should  this  be  the 
case,  unusual  effects,  perhaps  beautiful,  or  perhaps  bizarre  and 
ugly,  would  be  likely  to  occur. 

And  just  here  is  the  proper  place  to  notice  that,  in  our 
study  of  love,  we  have  not  so  far  touched  on  moral  considera- 
tions at  all.  The  idea  of  personal  morality  can  come  in  only 
when  the  question  arises  of  forming  a  purpose,  of  coming  to 
a  decision,  of  exerting  one's  will,  as  the  outcome  of  something 
suggested  by  the  love  passion.     As  soon  as  an  exercise  of  the 


ANALYSIS    OF    SEX    LOVE.  25 

will  in  one  direction  or  in  another  is  called  for,  moral  law, 
social  law,  and  various  other  matters  have  to  be  taken  into 
our  account.  At  this  stage,  the  love  passion  introduces  human- 
ity to  some  of  its  greatest  moral  conflicts,  its  most  agonizing 
struggles.  One  ray  or  another  of  the  rainbow  may  be  the 
dominant  one ;  it  may  be  highly  spiritualized  love,  or  it  may 
not;  but  in  either  case,  or  in  any  case,  so  soon  as  the  love 
passion  becomes,  under  stress  of  circumstances  or  moral  law, 
checked,  controlled,  inhibited  and  stifled,  pain  and  distress 
must  inevitably  ensue.  Here  we  see  the  love  passion  brought 
under  the  operation  of  the  highest  universal  law  known  to  us, 
the  law  of  sacrifice. 

Further,  even  if  the  love  passion  is  peculiarly,  or  so  to 
speak  irregularly  constituted,  it  cannot  be  described  as  in  itself 
evil,  except  in  the  limited  sense  in  which  we  can  speak  of  human 
nature  possessing  original  or  inherent  evil.  This  point  might 
be  illustrated  from  the  life  histories  of  many.  The  cases 
readily  occurring  to  me  are  those  of  two  historical  personages, 
women  belonging  to  the  same  race,  though  widely  separated 
in  point  of  time.  Both  were  exceptionally  gifted,  forceful, 
attractive,  brilliant;  full  of  a  wondrous  magnetism  for  others, 
and  in  themselves  of  highly  nervous  and  amative  tempera- 
ments. Love  was  in  both  their  lives  an  element  of  great 
power,  the  source  of  many  and  mighty  inspirations.  Its  influ- 
ence was  none  the  less  real  because — in  one  of  them— it  was 
so  highly  spiritualized  as  to  be  undefined,  and  as  it  were,  un- 
consciously or,  rather,  subconsciously  entertained.  lUit  there 
is  a  stranger  point.  So  far  as  I  can  interpret  the  historical 
evidence,  there  seems  to  have  inhered  in  the  love  passion  of 
these  two  women  an  unusual  development,  which  one  can  best 
describe,  by  the  use  of  our  illustration,  as  the  exaggeration 
from  some  cause  difficult  to  estimate,  of  one  ray  in  the  rain- 
bow.-''*    In  other  words,  one  of  the  emotional  elements  in  the 


,  ■  iJ  I  refer  here  to  the  emotional  interest  in  blood,  felt  by  the  great 
Saint  Catherine  of  Siena  (see  E.  Gardner's  Life  of  Catherine  of 
Siena),  as  well  as  by  the  sadistic  wanton,  the  Empress  Messalina. 


26  ANALYSIS    OF    SEX    LOVE. 

love  passion  present,  but  more  or  less  latent,  in  us  all,  was  in 
these  two  cases  unusually  and  dangerously  suggestible.  It 
responded  to  ideas  which  would  ordinarily  exercise  no  influ- 
ence at  all.  In  one  of  these  women,  the  eccentricity  of  the 
love  passion  became  the  chief  evil  influence  of  her  life.  It 
instigated  her  to  heinous  crimes,  and  her  name  stands  out  in 
history  as  that  of  one  of  the  most  infamous  of  her  sex.  She 
was  a  sinner  among  sinners.  In  the  other  case  the  unusual 
love  phenomenon  had  a  totally  different  history.  It  became 
associated  with  a  glowing  and  elevated  religious  mysticism. 
Instead  of,  as  in  the  previous  case,  benumbing  the  character- 
istic feminine  tenderness  and  pity,  it  stimulated  and  enhanced 
them.  It  colored  both  lives  red ;  but  in  the  latter  life  it  was  a 
red  reflecting  the  robe  that  covered  the  Savior  at  His  Passion, 
and  in  the  other  it  was  the  color  worn  by  the  Woman  who 
reigned  upon  the  Seven  Hills. 

Saints  and  mystics  are  not,  as  is  sometimes  imagined, 
unsusceptible  to  love;  on  the  contrary,  they  are  nervous,  pas- 
sionate, and  suggestible  in  an  uncommon  degree.  Their  pray- 
ers, letters,  communings  and  hymns  are  at  times  gorgeously 
colored  with  the  varied  lights  of  love.^  And  it  is  of  great 
significance  for  a  full  estimate  of  love  to  observe  that,  when 
love  has  reached  the  most  spiritualized  stage  within  the  com- 
pass of  human  experience,  when  the  soul  is  losing  itself  in 


'^  Professor  William  James  (Varieties  of  Religious  Experience, 
p.  lOff.)  adversely  comments  on  the  theorj'-  of  interchange  between  the 
religious  and  the  sexual  emotions.  He  is  doubtless  right  in  maintain- 
ing that  the  occasional  resemblance  between  the  two  kinds  of  emotion, 
a  resemblance  which  he  recognizes  (pp.  11,  345ff.),  does  not  warrant 
the  inference  that  religious  emotion  has  no  peculiar  and  superior 
value.  But  it  remains  true  that  the  sex  nature  in  some  subjects  is 
affected  and  excited  by  religious  suggestions — which  is  not  to  say  that 
those  suggestions  have  their  origin  in  the  sex  consciousness ;  and  that 
the  resulting  type  of  religious  emotion  has  a  more  or  less  definitely 
erotic  tendency,  the  development  of  which  is  conditioned  by  the  gen- 
eral circumstances  in  the  organism  experiencing  it,  by  the  subject's 
health,  degree  of  mental  enlightenment,  and  natural  or  acquired 
will-power. 


ANALYSIS    OF    SEX    LOVE.  27 

ecstasy,  enveloped  in  the  deepening  glow  of  the  violet  ray; 
just  then,  the  red  ray  in  the  rainbow  may  imperiously  reassert 
its  power,'''  The  strain  of  the  spiritualized  love  process  within 
the  organism  may  prove  greater  than  it  can  bear.  The  soul 
may  be  roughly  flung  back  from  the  things  of  spirit  to  the 
things  of  sense.  It  is  on  the  uncertain  borderland  between 
matter  and  spirit,  the  mysterious  region  where  true  lights  and 
false  lights  shine  together,  where  rarest  saintliness  and  marvel- 
lous sins,  mystic  wisdom  and  piteous  madness,  appear  all  at 
once  and  strive  for  mastery,  that  humanity's  mightiest  con- 
flicts have  been  fought;  conflicts  as  much  nobler  than  political 
battles  as  moral  force  is  higher  than  physical  force ;  as  much 
braver  than  such  battles  as  the  courage  which  fights  alone  is 
greater  than  the  courage  which  displays  itself  in  company. 

Of  the  very  many  contemporary  writers  who  elucidate 
sexual  phenomena  and  problems,  one  at  least,  Sigmund  Freud, 
has  given  proofs  of  an  original  genius  in  the  handling  of  the 
subject ;  and  the  influence  of  his  analysis  of  the  sex  conscious- 
ness is  increasingly  felt  in  the  world  of  thought.  His  leading 
idea  is  that  the  sexual  nature  being  the  source,  or  in  great 
part  the  source,  of  the  total  manifestation  of  individual  human 
energy,  it  is  possible  to  recognize  in  various  human  activities 
the  methods  and  grades  of  the  transmutation  and  sublimation 
of  the  sexual  impulse,  and  to  seek  in  these  activities  compensa- 
tions for  unsatisfied  sexual  needs.  Erich  WuMen,  who  has 
fully  exploited  this  idea  in  the  department  of  criminology,  con- 
siders that  the  practice  of  crime  constitutes  one  of  these 
compensating  expressions. 

These  views  have  been  much  criticised  and  opposed,^  and 
may  well  require  modification.  To  assign  a  sexual  origin, 
unless  in  virtue  of  a  very  remote  connection,  to  any  and 
every  manifestation  of  human  energy,  and  to  see  sexual  equiv- 
alents everywhere   in   human   action,   may  be    fanciful,   or  at 

''  Havelock  Ellis,  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex,  vol.  i,  ch.  ii, 
p.  325. 

^E.g.,  by  Moll,  The  Sexual  Life  of  the  Child,  pp.  189ff. 


28  ANALYSIS    OF    SEX   LOVE. 

least  of  theoretic  interest,  rather  than  of  immediate  practical 
utility.  The  compensations  procurable  from  the  environment 
are  in  fact  often  in  no  way  equivalents;  they  are  far  from 
adequate  to  meet  the  current  needs  of  the  sexual  life.  Yet, 
v^hen  all  objections  have  been  urged,  the  principles  of  Freud 
and  Wulffen  are  of  great  service  in  enabling  us  to  understand 
such  lives  as  those  referred  to.  It  becomes  clear  that  exag- 
gerated and  even  abnormal  developments  of  the  sexual  instinct 
may  form  the  foundation  of  lofty  as  well  as  of  debased  char- 
acters. The  specific  sexual  inheritance  common  to  both  may 
not  indeed  be  conditioned  and  balanced  to  the  same  extent  in 
each  by  other  hereditary  factors.  In  this  aspect  the  pros- 
pective saint  may  have  an  initial  advantage  over  the  future 
criminal.  Still,  the  resulting  moral  divergence  between  the 
two  personalities  is  largely  a  matter  of  accruing  factors,  educa- 
tional and  religious  influences  and  spiritual  increment. 

Much  is  to  be  hoped  for  in  the  solution  of  sex  problems, 
for  the  amelioration  of  the  sex  life  in  humanity,  from  the 
development  and  application  of  Freud's  far-reaching  princi- 
ples. Since,  after  all  deductions  are  made,  it  is  evident  that 
sexual  energies  can  be  and  are  transmuted  into  activities  of  a 
different  order,  what  we  have  to  desiderate  is  the  extension 
of  this  process  in  transmutation,  and  its  guidance  along  right 
lines;  in  a  word,  humanity  needs  the  increasing  spiritualiza- 
tion  of  the  sexual  impulse.  We  shall  have  regard  to  this 
spiritualization  again  later  on.  Here  we  have  considered  it 
in  the  psychology  of  a  great  saint. 

Human  nature  craves  for  the  element  of  romance  in  life, 
and  sexual  compensations  can  be  adequate  only  in  so  far  as 
they  contain  this  clement.  Men  and  women  who  suffer  from 
erotic  desires,  bafiled  either  on  the  physical  or  on  the  psychical 
side,  are  wise  if  they  seek  a  new  outlet  for  such  desires  by 
their  transmutation  into  new  and  good  forms  of  energy, 
through  work,  art,  thought,  science,  philanthropic,  social  and 
humane  endeavors,  and,  most  of  all,  personal  religion. 

The  more  unselfish  is  the  spirit  of  these  new  energies,  the 


ANALYSIS    OF    SEX    LOVE.  29 

larger  will  be  the  element  of  romance  and  expectation  within 
them,  and,  consequently,  the  nearer  will  they  approximate  to 
the  provision  of  adequate  sexual  equivalents.  We  may  watch, 
in  some  few  of  the  autobiographies  included  by  Havelock  Ellis 
in  his  great  work,  this  process  of  transmutation  taking  place. 
There  we  observe  people  exploiting  for  their  own  support  and 
consolation  the  quasi-erotic  collective  influence  and  stimulation 
which  the  sexes  exercise  upon  each  other,  and  by  the  growing 
spirituality  of  their  outlook  becoming  conscious  of  a  brightness 
gradually  surrounding  the  rebuffs  and  tensions  felt  by  the 
sexual  nature. 

And  when  we  look  on  to  another  life,  yet  more  important 
results  may  be  inferred  from  the  psychological  analysis  initi- 
ated by  Freud.  The  possession  in  common,  by  two  persons 
during  earth  life,  of  a  particular  hereditary  disability — accord- 
ing to  our  present  illustration,  a  hyperesthetic  or  abnormal 
sexual  factor — forms  a  point  oi  sympathetic  contact  for  their 
two  personalities,  through  which  the  ethically  higher  person- 
ality may  conceivably  be  permitted  to  influence  and  elevate  the 
lower.  But  the  full  consideration  of  such  possibilities  belongs 
to  the  domain  of  psychical  science  in  conjunction  with  eschato- 
logical  science,  and  cannot  be  followed  up  here. 

All  through  human  history,  mankind  has  been  trying  to 
bring  the  love  passion  into  permanent  touch  with  reason,  to 
direct  and  control  love  developments.  Just  as  from  time  to 
time  in  Church  history,  the  Church  has  had  to  deal  with  pro- 
phetic or  visionary  ecstasy,  and  has  tried  to  establish  some 
standard  of  reasonable  control,  of  critical  sobriety  in  regard 
to  it,  maintaining  that  the  spirits  of  the  prophets  should  be 
subject  to  the  prophets;^  so  it  has  been  and  is  with  the  love 
ecstasy.  To  set  up  right  moral  standards,  right  conceptions 
both  of  freedom  and  of  discipline,  in  regard  to  it ;  to  restrain, 
and  ultimately  to  eliminate  from  social  life  those  manifesta- 
tions of  it  which  hurt  either  the  individual  or  society;  to  dis- 

9  1  Cor.  14:32. 


30  ANALYSIS    OF    SEX   LOVE. 

cover,  in  fact,  how  this  complex  natural  phenomenon,  love, 
may  be  made  to  serve  the  best  interests  of  humanity, — these 
are  great  problems  of  life  upon  which  volumes  have  been 
and  volumes  will  be  written ;  problems  which  require  for  their 
solution  not  only  the  fullest  energies  of  the  human  intellect, 
but  the  widest  and  tenderest  sympathies  of  the  human  heart; 
and,  more  than  all,  that  factor  which  has  been  felt  all  through 
human  history,  though  it  has  never  been  fully  measured  or 
adequately  described, — the  Light  and  Guidance  of  the  Spirit 
of  God. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Sexuality  in  Childhood. 

Sexual  Vice — Difficulties  in  Coping  With — Analysis  of,  in  Hu- 
manit}' — Sexual  Vice  in  Animals — Among  Children — Methods  of 
Dealing   With — Hygiene — Moral    Suasion — Teaching — Punishments. 

Methods  of  coping  with  the  huge  evil  of  sexual  impurity, 
by  legislative  and  other  measures,  have  usually  the  fault  of  be- 
ginning to  work  at  the  circumference  of  the  phenomenon,  on 
the  false  theory  that  the  center  and  heart  of  it  can  thus  be 
reached.  To  suppose  that  adequate  remedies  of  this  class  of 
evils  will  be  found  in  clearing  the  streets  of  children  and 
young  people  after  a  certain  hour,  in  getting  up  entertain- 
ments, checking  the  sale  of  sensuous  pictures  and  promoting 
other  surface  measures,  is  to  fall  into  a  fatuous  error.  It 
would  be  as  rational  to  think  that  we  could  curb  the  violence 
of  a  volcanic,  eruption  by  carting  away  a  little  of  the  refuse 
and  scoria  on  the  outskirts  of  the  scene  of  disturbance,  while 
the  cone  in  the  center,  waxing  ever  hotter  and  more  furious, 
continued  to  discharge  vaster  supplies  of  fiery  matter. 

In  the  present  order  of  things  it  may  well  be  doubted 
whether  any  legislator  will  arise  capable  of  framing  adequate 
laws  for  the  treatment  of  sexual  misdemeanors  and  follies. 
Legislation  has  here  to  cope  with  an  adversary  so  subtle  that 
save  for  partial  success  at  a  few  points,  legislative  efforts  must 
recoil  baffled. 

Let  us  not,  then,  attempt  to  satisfy  our  consciences  by  the 
promotion  of  mere  surface  measures :  not  indeed  that  they  are 
in  every  case  entirely  useless,  but  they  deal  with  symptoms  and 
effects  rather  than  with  causes.  Let  us  investigate  beyond 
these,  and  try  to  press  nearer  the  heart  of  the  question,  wel- 
coming whatever  help  and  guidance  can  be  obtained,  from  the 
light  of  revelation  and  the  light  of  science,  in  this  dark  region. 

(31) 


32  SEXUALITY   IN   CHILDHOOD. 

As  already  hinted,  a  correct  analysis  of  sexual  sin  cannot 
be  arrived  at  merely  by  referring  all  phases  of  it  in  humanity 
to  man's  willful  depravity  and  responsible  choice.  Man's  sex- 
ual nature,  and  the  conditions  which  surround  it,  are  not  so 
detached  from  those  of  the  higher  brutes  as  wholly  to  justify 
the  comparisons  which  some  writers  on  sexual  subjects  are 
fond  of  drawing  between  his  ignoble  depravity  and  corrupt- 
ness and  the  innocence  of  brutes.  This  contrast  is  not  so 
instructive  as  it  claims  to  be.  For,  in  the  first  place,  it  is 
erroneous  to  assume  an  absence  among  brutes  of  sexual  vice. 
In  a  tract  of  the  White  Cross  series  ^  these  words  occur : 
"The  animals  never  sin  against  their  nature,  unless  man  has 
tampered  with  them."  It  is  not  quite  clear  what  the  writer 
means  by  these  words.  It  is  by  no  means  uncommon  to  ob- 
serve the  grossest  perversion  of .  the  sexual  instinct  among 
animals.  The  present  writer  has  observed  strange  instances  of 
this  phenomenon,  which  seem  due  mainly  to  the  fact  that  in 
a  disturbed  environment  the  instinct  is  denied  its  normal 
gratification. 2 

Modern  moralists  are  being  compelled,  in  the  light  of 
facts,  to  recognize  that  abnormal  sexual  action,  e.g.,  masturba- 
tion, occurs  in  certain  circumstances  among  the  lower  animals. 
Dr.  Stall  admits  this  very  reluctantly  and  with  large  reserva- 
tions. The  real  truth  lies  probably  midway  between  his  posi- 
tion and  that  taken  up  by  Godfrey  in  the  Science  of  Sex. 
Animals,  when  taken  out  of  their  normal  sexual  environment, 
may  not  masturbate  as  readily  as  Godfrey  seems  to  believe, 
but  there  is  reason  to  think  that  they  do  so  much  more  readily 
than  writers  like  Dr.  Stall  allow.  We  shall  approach  this  sub- 
ject again  later  on. 

Secondly,  it  is  shown  by  much  independent  investigation 

1  True  Manliness,  by  J.  E.  H.,  p.  14. 

2  Q.  Westermarck,  Hist,  of  Hum.  Marriage,  p.  281;  Moll,  The 
Sexual  Life  of  the  Child,  pp.  102f.,  123 ;  Fere,  L'Instinct  Sexuel,  ch.  iii ; 
Hirschfeld,  Die  Homosexualitat,  ch.  xxix ;  Thoinot-Weysse,  Medico- 
legal Moral  Offenses,  p.  344. 


SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD.  33 

that  man's  resp>onsibility  is  surrounded  by  conditions  which 
hmit,  while  they  do  not  obhterate  it,  and  on  the  other  hand, 
among  modern  students  of  ethics  there  is  an  increasing  tend- 
ency to  recognize  moral  elements  in  the  psychology  of  animals. 
Animals  among  themselves  are  capable  of  acts  which  appear 
to  human  observers  self-sacrificing,  considerate,  kind, — acts 
which  call  forth  human  moral  approval ;  or,  on  the  other 
hand, — again  as  between  themselves, — of  acts  which  seem  to 
us  deserving  of  reprobation. ^  As  to  the  light  in  which  those 
acts  are  viewed  by  the  animals'  society  or  environment,  we 
are,  as  Westermarck  states,  dependent  on  the  unsafe  criterion 
of  our  subjective  interpretation  of  the  facts."*  But  the  general 
consideration  may  be  entertained,  that  the  law  of  evolution 
implies  a  chain  of  related  phenomena,  physical  and  psychical, 
in  the  creative  series.  Whoever  recognizes  the  operation  of 
this  law  might  well  expect,  with  Leconte,  to  detect  germinal 
moral  and  spiritual  capacities  in  the  lower  animals.  It  is  con- 
trary to  analogy  to  demarcate  rigidly  between  man  and  the 
lower  creation  in  respect  of  moral  capacity.  Westermarck's  de- 
nial to  animals  of  any  share  in  moral  responsibility  is  not  sup- 
ported either  by  the  general  operation  of  the  evolutionary 
process  or  by  the  particular  facts  he  cites.  "A  man  must  be 
blind,"  says  Professor  Forel,  "not  to  recognize  that  the 
wonderful  facts  which  the  study  of  the  psychology  or  biology 
of  animals  produces  for  us  repeat  themselves  in  the  human' 
soul  itself."^ 

Hence,  although  in  our  race,  as  compared  with  brutes,  the 
sexual  instinct  comes  under  new  laws,  it  is  none  the  less  inter- 


^  A.  Rolker  (Windsor  Magazine,  March,  1905),  in  an  article,  The 
Rogues  of  a  Zoo,  gives  striking  instances  of  the  capacity  of  animals 
for  savage  and  meditated  treachery,  not  only  toward  man,  but  toward 
their  own  kind.  Darwin  describes  breaches  of  unwritten  social  law 
among  birds   (Descent  of  Man,  ch.  xiv). 

4  Westermarck,  Origin  and  Development  of  the  Moral  Ideas,  vol. 
i,  p.  249ff. 

5  Forel,  Die  sexuelle  Frage,  p.  97. 

3 


34  SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD. 

esting  and  important  to^  observe  that  some,  at  least,  of  the 
causes  which  produce  sexual  vice  in  man  may  be  seen  operat- 
ing in  the  brute  creation.  The  case  may  be  stated  concisely 
in  this  way :  given  a  strong  desire,  ever  pressing  for  gratifica- 
tion, and  a  set  of  circumstances  which  do  not  allow  of  its 
normal  gratification,  and  unless  some  counteracting  force  can 
be  brought  into  play — e.g.,  the  will-power  and  nobler  develop- 
ments of  the  human  soul — some  abnormal  and  illegitimate  use 
of  the  sexual  function  must  ensue. 

In  studying  sexual  vice,  then,  in  humanity,  it  will  not 
be  sufficient  either  to  denounce  corruptness  or  to  emphasize 
responsibility.  We  must  aim  first  at  the  recognition  and  ap- 
preciation of  the  causes  of  the  exaggeration  and  perversion  of 
desire ;  secondly,  at  the  removal  of  those  causes  and  the  conse- 
quent diminution  or  moderating  of  desire  by  medical  or  other 
means ;  thirdly,  since  no  known  physical  means  will  adequately 
accomplish  this  object,  at  the  introduction  and  development  of 
counter-influences,  derivable  from  man's  higher  capacities. 

The  ensuing  discussion  of  children's  impurity  will  start 
from  these  premises. 

It  is  a  somewhat  strange  circumstance  that  solitary  im- 
morality, a  widespread  evil  in  modern  times,  and  the  earliest 
form  in  which  impurity  usually  makes  its  appearance  in  a 
human  life,  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Bible.  None  of  the  Greek 
words  used  in  the  Bible  of  sexual  vice  explicitly  refer  to  this 
form  of  it,  though  scholars  have  attempted  to  find  such  allu- 
sions.^  None  the  less  the  general  principles  of  morality  and 
natural  law  urge  us  to  make  efforts  to  cope  with  the  evil. 

The  power  of  the  sexual  instinct,  mainly  perhaps  from 
hereditary  causes,  varies  greatly  in  individuals,  and  even  in 
young  children.  Just  as  some  children  are  more  choleric  than 
others,  so  some  are  more  sexually  precocious.'^     And  when  it 


6  Bengel  on  I  Cor.  6 : 9.     See  Additional  Note  D  on  Masturbation. 

■^  The  progress  of  morphology  has  demonstrated  the  existence  of 
the  "erotic  temperament"  (Gemelli,  op.  cit.,  pp.  34f.)-  In  the  auto- 
biographies printed  by  Havelock  Ellis  as  appendices  to  the  Studies  in 


SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD.  35 

is  discovered  or  suspected  that  a  child's  sexual  instinct  is  ab- 
normally developed,  and  likely  if  unchecked  to  lead  him  in  his 
ignorance  and  inexperience,  into  habits  of  solitary  immorality 
and  other  forms  of  impurity,  his  education,  and  the  physical 
management  of  him,  so  far  as  they  concern  his  sexual  nature, 
must  be  directed  to  two  ends:  First,  to  diminish,  or  at  least 
to  refrain  from  unwittingly  exciting,  the  physical  activity  of 
the  instinct,  and  to  keep  it  latent  during  the  helpless  years  of 
childhood;  and  second,  to  develop  his  moral  and  spiritual  man- 
hood, and  to  foster  the  growth  of  his  will-power.  Thus  in 
boyhood  and  early  manhood,  when  his  youthful  vitality  is  ma- 
turing, and  the  circle  of  his  experiences  expanding,  and  when 
the  stress  and  responsibility  of  his  conflict  with  impurity  must 
fall  directly  upon  himself,  he  will  have  at  starting  the  advant- 
age of  a  childhood  purely  and  healthily  spent,  and  will  be  able 
to  oppose  to  the  excessive  or  unlawful  impulses  of  desire — 
such  impulses  as  a  wider  contact  with  society  must  give — the 
nobler  forces  which  have  been  growing  up  within  his  soul. 

On  parents  in  the  first  place  devolves  the  duty  of  combat- 
ing and  repelling  this  dire  foe  of  childhood  and  youth,  secret 
impurity.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  condemn  in  too  strong  terms 
the  apathy  shown  by  multitudes,  perhaps  by  the  majority  of 
parents,  in  respect  of  the  sexual  development  of  children 
in  early  years.  More  reckless  than  the  Moloch  worshipers  of 
antiquity,  they  suffer  not  merely  strong,  well-grown  offspring, 
but  tender  little  ones  to  feel  the  might  of  the  flames.  Experi- 
ence abundantly  proves  that  habits  of  impurity  will  readily 
take  root  and  acquire  strength  in  quite  young  children  if  a 
sympathetic  watch  over  their  sexual  development  is  neglected.^ 


the  Psychology  of  Sex,  illustrations  of  sexual  precocity  are  to  be 
found ;  so  also  in  Moll's  book  on  the  Child.  Freud,  in  his  Drei 
Abhandlungen  zur  Sexualtheorie,  and  other  works,  has  analyzed  the 
whole  subject  of  sexuality  in  children  yet  more  thoroughly. 

s  I  may  here  cite  the  following  Questions  for  Parents  in  a  recent 
devotionally  beautiful  and  morally  searching  book,  the  product  of 
progressive  Catholicism : — 

"Do  I  try  to  prepare  my  sons  in  all  ways   for  life,  enlightening 


36  SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD. 

Masturbation  in  young  children  may  not  be  easily  discov- 
erable by  physical  tokens,^  such  as  Mrs.  Ennis  Richmond  de- 
scribes in  her  boOk,  Boyhood.  Havelock  Ellis  throws  great 
doubt  on  many  of  the  symptoms  said  to  be  indicative  of  mas- 
turbation in  adults,  symptoms  which,  in  any  case,  are  not 
likely  to  obtain  a  noticeable  development  in  young  children.'"^ 
Yet  it  must  usually  be  possible  for  a  watchful  mother,  awake 
to  the  danger,  to  perceive  the  formation  of  the  habit  in  its 
beginnings. 

The  notion  which  becomes  an  instinctive  sense  in  the 
adult,  that  sexual  functions  have  an  element  of  impurity  and 
require  concealing,  is  as  yet  unformed  in  the  young  child's 
mind.  Masturbation  in  very  young  children  frequently  is 
begun  half  unconsciously  as  a  reflex  act,  and  though  they  soon 
learn  to  understand  that  it  can  only  be  performed  safely  in 
privacy,  the  early  stages  of  the  formation  of  the  habit  are 
characterized  by  a  considerable  openness  in  regard  to  it.  The 
act  is  usually  performed  with  the  hand,  but  not  a  few  children 


them — according  to  age,  physical  and  mental  growth,  environment  and 
circumstances — on  certain  realities  and  certain  dangers? 

"Do  I  try  to  furnish  them  with  all  armor  for  the  conflict  with 
their  passions? 

"Do  I  try  to  implant  in  my  sons  the  feeling  of  the  grave  respon- 
sibility which  their  young  manhood  has,  in  respect  of  themselves,  of 
women,  of  their  future  families? 

"Do  I  try  to  educate  them  to  be  well  prepared,  either  for  the 
conjugal  state  or  for  celibacy, — so  as  to  be  able  to  find  in  this  latter, 
if  they  are  called  and  destined  to  it,  spiritual  contentment ;  and  so  as 
to  see  in  matrimony,  not  a  means  of  satisfying  selfish  desires,  but  an 
institution  designed  to  fulfill  a  civil  and  social  mission,  full  of  high 
duties?"    Adveniat  Regnum  Tuum  (Milano),  pp.  136f. 

9  Dr.  Stall  (What  a  Young  Boy  Ought  to  Know,  cylinder  xi) 
goes  even  farther,  endeavoring  to  find  among  boys  not  only  physical, 
but  general  moral  and  spiritual  indications  of  the  existence  of  the 
habit  of  masturbation.  A  writer  in  The  Guardian,  in  a  review  of  the 
above-mentioned  book,  rightly  remarks  on  the  futility  of  such  attempts. 

Oa  Weysse  thinks  there  is  no  truth  in  the  idea  that  juvenile  mas- 
turbation enlarges  the  genital  organs  in  either  sex  (Thoinot-Weysse, 
Medicolegal  Moral  Offenses,  p.  34n.). 


SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD.  37 

acquire,  sometimes  accidentally,  a  preference  for  rubbing 
themselves  against  bedding,  furniture,  etc. 

The  author  of  Boyhood  gives  some  excellent  advice  as 
to  the  kind  of  moral  suasion  likely  to  have  effect  on  a  little 
boy  in  whom  the  habit  has  been  detected.  Fere  says  that  in  his 
experience  good  results  have  been  obtained  from  the  use  by 
the  child's  mother  of  prohibitive  suggestion  during  normal 
sleep.  The  mother  sitting  by  the  bedside  with  the  child's  hand 
in  hers  would  will  him  to  resist  the  newly  formed  inclination, 
supporting  the  effort  of  her  own  volition  with  the  power  of 
prayer.io 

In  modern  popular  medical  works  useful  hints  are  given 
with  respect  to  the  safeguarding  of  children  against  precocious 
physical  desires.  The  employment  of  sensible  and  pure- 
minded  nurses,  where  nurses  are  a  necessity  of  the  household ; 
the  use  of  wholesome,  digestible  foods ;  care  lest  a  very  young 
child  be  inadvertently  placed  in  positions  which  may  excite  its 
latent  physical  propensities — how  often  do-  we  see  women 
nursing  infants  face  downward  upon  their  lap,  heating  and 
irritating  their  genitals  by  the  gentle  rocking  motion  and  warm 
contact  of  their  knees ;  systematic  cleanliness  as  regards  a 
child's  clothes  and  bed ;  and  in  many  cases  a  resort  to  the  prac- 
tice of  circumcision — a  point  to  be  especially  considered^i — 
are  all  matters  to  which  parents  would  do  well  to  attend. 
Here,  too,  we  may  note,  in  order  to  condemn,  the  practice  of 
sending  children  to  bed  in  the  daytime  as  a  punishment.     In 


1'^  F.  Myers  refers  to  the  use  of  hypnotic  suggestion  for  the  cure 
of  several  childish  tricks  and  ailments,  not  explicitly  mentioning  mas- 
turbation, but  undoubtedly  including  it.  (Human  Personality,  etc., 
vol.  i,  527a.)  See  also  Religion  and  Medicine  (Worcester,  McComb, 
Coriat),  p.  69.  The  method  used  by  one  of  these  authors  was  "to 
address  the  sleeping  child  in  a  low  and  gentle  tone,  telling  it  that  I 
am  about  to  speak  to  it  and  that  it  will  hear  me,  but  that  my  words 
will  not  disturb  it,  nor  will  it  awake.  Then  I  give  the  necessary  sug- 
gestions in  simple  words,  repeating  them  in  different  language  several 
times." 

11  See  Additional  Note  E  on  Circumcision. 


38  SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD. 

the  case  of  a  child  with  a  strongly  developed  sexual  instinct, 
one  would  think  that  few  more  effective  ways  of  unduly  excit- 
ing it  could  be  devised  than  the  one  mentioned.  Almost  the 
first  piece  of  advice  a  medical  man  would  give  to  anyone  who 
was  liable  to  excessive  carnal  desire  would  be  not  to  spend 
too  much  time  under  the  bedclothes.  Yet  to  save  themselves 
trouble,  parents  and  guardians  will  frequently  visit  some  petty 
fault  upon  children  with  this  unwise  and  dangerous  pun- 
ish ment.^- 

It  is  necessary,  at  the  same  time,  to  guard  against  fussiness 
and  pedantry  in  dealing  with  the  sexual  hygiene  of  childhood. 
It  is  an  exaggeration  to  say,  with  a  popular  medical  writer, ^^ 
that  "tea,  coffee,  flesh  meats,  to  say  nothing  of  the  abomina- 
tions of  the  baker  and  confectioner,  are  sufficient  to  account 
for  the  early  tendency  to  sexual  dissipation  manifested  among 
children.  ...  It  may  be  said  that  unchastity,  and  the  enor- 
mous and  unnatural  development  of  the  sexual  passions,  are 
largely  the  effect  of  highly  stimulating  foods  and  drinks. 
Alcohol  and  tobacco  no  doubt  goad  this  instinct  into  such  a 
fever  that  it  is  almost  uncontrollable. "^^ 


1-  I  have  known  of  public  institutions  where  inmates  were  pun- 
ished by  this  method.  It  is  gross  mismanagement.  {Cp.  Moll,  op.  cit., 
p.  307;  Gemelli,  op.  cit.,  p.  139;  Ellis  and  Moll,  Handbuch  der  Sexual- 
wissenschaften,  p.  625.) 

13  Trail,  Sexual  Physiology  and  Hygiene,  pp.  224,  266. 

I'^It  is,  of  course,  recognized  on  all  sides  that  the  reckless  use  of 
alcohol  works  in  most  effectually  with  impure  sexuality  as  an  excita- 
tive of  desire,  and  yet  with  detriment  to  the  sexual  power.  A  lady  in 
New  Zealand  of  great  experience  in  rescue  work  told  the  author  that 
she  had  once  asked  a  woman,  convicted  after  many  years  of  keeping 
a  house  of  ill  fame,  to  mention  anything  which  had  come  particularly 
under  her  notice  in  that  capacity.  The  prostitute  replied  that  she  had 
almost  invariably  observed  that  the  male  visitors  to  her  house  were 
in  some  degree  under  the  influence  of  drink.  Cp.  Good,  quoted  by 
Gemelli,  op.  cit.,  p.  134 :  "There  is  but  a  short  step  between  the  public- 
house  and  the  brothel."  Gemelli  does  not,  however,  condemn  abso- 
lutely the  use  of  either  alcohol  or  tobacco,  and  advocates  a  well-pro- 
portioned,   generous    diet.      When   the    facts   concerning   the   abuse   of 


SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD.  39 

There  is  an  element  of  rashness  In  such  statements  as 
these.  Sexual  desire  cannot  be  prevented  or  overcome  by  a 
mere  process  of  dieting;  else  why  were  many  of  the  ascetics 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  in  spite  of  their  rigorous  abstinence  in 
matters  of  eating  and  drinking,  exposed  to  such  fierce  sexual 


alcohol  and  the  evil  effects  of  such  abuse  on  the  sex  life  are  grouped 
and  emphasized  as  they  are  by  A.  and  F.  Lepmann  and  in  Forel's 
important  work,  they  explain  the  latter  writer's  prohibitionist  attitude. 
Not  only  does  alcoholic  excess  interfere  with  the  functioning  of  the 
sexual  apparatus  in  the  manner  already  referred  to;  but,  ontogenet- 
ically,  it  may  give  an  impulse  to  the  development  and  expression  of 
pathological  conditions  of  the  sex  instinct  in  the  subject  himself;  or, 
phylogenetically,  the  alcohol  may  injuriously  affect  the  germ-plasma, 
causing  psychosexual  defects  which  were  latent  in  the  parent  to 
become  congenitally  pronounced  in  the  offspring.  These  views  of  the 
pernicious  influence  of  alcoholic  excess  on  the  sex  life  and  the  sexual 
functions  are  supported  by  the  authors  mentioned  with  descriptions 
of  experiments  on  animals,  estimates  of  statistics,  and  personal  obser- 
vations. Still,  the  theory  of  the  alcoholizing  of  the  germ-plasma 
would  seem  to  be  as  yet  in  an  undeveloped  state.  Some  interesting, 
though  inconclusive  observations  have  been  thrown  into  the  scale 
against  the  above-mentioned  views.  It  has  been  pointed  out  further 
that  in  view  of  the  retardative  action  of  alcohol  on  the  organism,  a 
measured  use  of  alcohol  in  some  good  combination — and  always  accom- 
panied, I  would  suggest,  with  food — may  even  be  of  service  before 
sexual  congress  in  certain  cases  where  the  virility  is  weak.  The  balance 
of  considerations,  however,  in  connection  with  the  sex  life,  is  cer- 
tainly not  adverse  to,  rather  it  definitely  favors,  voluntary  total 
abstinence. 

A  general  discussion  of  temperance  in  alcohol  would  carry  me 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  present  subject.  It  is  enough  to  remind  our- 
selves that  there  are  alternative  methods  of  general  reform  to  that  of 
prohibition.  Of  such  classes  of  reforms — reforms  preferable  to  pro- 
hibition because  they  take  a  fuller  and  fairer  account  of  the  facts  and 
needs  of  life — the  works  of  Messrs.  Rowntree  and  Sherwell  afford  the 
best-known  discussion.  (Senator  and  Kaminer,  op.  cit.,  vol.  ii,  pp. 
1057ff. ;  Forel,  Die  sexuelle  Frage,  pp.  270ff.,  322f.,  454f.,  and  passim; 
Orth's  discussion  in  Senator  and  Kaminer,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  esp.  p.  57; 
C.  W.  Saleeby  in  Fug.  Rev.,  vol.  ii,  No.  1 ;  Ethel  Elderton,  Parental 
Alcoholism,  reviewed  in  Eug.  Rev.,  vol.  ii.  No.  2,  p.  150;  The  Tem- 
perance ProI)]cni  and  Social  Reform,  popular  ed.,  6d.) 


40  SEXUALITY   IN    CHILDHOOD. 

temptations  pi"^  It  is  moreover  surprising,  in  regard  at  least 
of  some  English  schools — though  perhaps  Dr.  Trail  is  thinking 
of  American  schools — to  hear  charges  brought  against  the 
authorities  of  overfeeding  and  pampering  the  boys.  Whatever 
experiences  some  of  us  may  have  had  at  school,  that  certainly 
v^as  not  one  of  them. 

Besides  care  of  the  physical  development  of  a  young  child, 
right  moral  influence,  a  matter  of  even  greater  importance, 
ought  to  direct  the  education  of  his  ideas  of  sexual  morality. 
As  the  child's  moral  sense  strengthens,  and  the  time  approaches 
v^^hen,  by  his  entrance  upon  school  life,  he  is  to  take  on  himself 
to  a  large  extent  the  responsibility  for  his  sexual  development, 
opportunities  varying  with  circumstances  will  be  offered  of 
warning  him  against  the  dangers  which  may  beset  and  press 
hard  upon  him  during  this  development.  The  difficulty  felt  by 
a  father,  and  still  more  by  a  mother,  in  turning  these  oppor- 
tunities to  advantage  has  come  in  for  a  good  deal  of  considera- 
tion in  .the  minds  of  many  thoughtful  people.  It  is  sympa- 
thetically treated  by  the  Rev.  E.  Lyttelton,  Mothers  and  Sons, 
p.  95ff. 

Indeed,  if  mothers  are  to  speak  to  growing  boys  on  this 
subject  at  all,  an  especial  care  is  requisite.  As  regards  the 
silent  observation  and  safeguarding  of  the  sexual  development 
of  infants  and  young  children,  this  duty  can,  it  is  true,  be 
ordinarily  performed  by  women  better  than  by  men.  It  falls 
more  properly  within  their  sphere.  But  a  different  phase  of 
the  subject  is  entered  upon  in  the  case  of  a  boy  nearing  the 
age  of  puberty.  Many  mothers  disregard  the  increase  of  sex- 
ual power  in  their  son,  and  continue  to  treat  him  systematically 
and  in  a  variety  of  ways  as  a  baby,  long  after  their  instinctive 
modesty  and  feminine  tact  should  have  warned  them  to  respect 
the  dawn  of  manhood  in  him.  Others,  perhaps,  are  morbidly 
anxious  and  prudishly  sensitive  on  the  subject  of  the  sexual 

15  Zockler,  Askese  und  Monchthum ;  Bloch,  The  Sexual  Life  of 
Our  Time,  p.  113;  Gasquoine  Hartley,  The  Truth  about  Woman,  p. 
2,2Z ;  F.  W.  Farrar,  Lives  of  the  Fathers,  vol.  ii.  p.  223ff. 


SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD.  41 

relation.  The  moral  effect  upon  a  boy  of  being  spoken  to  on 
sexual  matters  by  either  of  these  classes  of  women  might  be 
a  disastrous  one.  A  mother's  influence  upon  her  growing  son, 
in  this  particular,  should  be  indirect  rather  than  direct. 

Forel  distinguishes,  as  an  especial  cause  of  the  difficulty 
experienced  by  adults  in  safeguarding  or  training  the  sexual 
nature  of  children,  the  fact  that  in  the  education  of  his  chil- 
dren the  grown  man  is  continually  liable  to  impute  his  own 
feelings — the  feelings  of  an  adult — to  the  child.  "The  very 
thing  which  excites  an  adult  sexually  leaves  a  sexually  imma- 
ture child  quite  indifferent. "i*"'  If  this  is  true,  the  converse 
is  at  least  equally  so.  Sexual  precocity  or  hyperesthesia,  even 
in  quite  young  children,  is  probably  commoner  than  Gemelli 
allows,!"  and  various  stimulations  may  arise  on  that  basis. 
We  shall  note  presently,  for  example,  that  masochism,  or  pas- 
sive algolagnia,  frequently  supplies  the  earliest  impulse  to  sex 
consciousness.  The  expansion  of  the  sex  life  may,  and  prob- 
ably will,  diminish  the  power  of  this  particular  stimulation, 
and  correspondingly  increase  that  of  the  normal  sexual  stimuli ; 
with  the  result  that  the  desire  formerly  tending  toward 
juvenile  masturbation  enters  another  direction,  toward  normal 
sexual  relations. 1^  Here,  then,  we  have  an  illustration  of  the 
difference  between  the  sexual  susceptibility  of  a  child  and 
that  of  an  adult. 

But  in  spite  of  difificulties,  serious  people  are  agreed  upon 
the  general  principle  that  it  is  better  that  a  boy  should  hear 
about  sexual  matters  in  the  first  instance  from  one  who  would 
treat  them  reverently,  than  from  schoolfellows  who  would 
assuredly,  from  want  of  better  knowledge,  discuss  them  either 
lightly  or  pruriently,  and  with  the  use  of  a  coarse  vocabulary.!^ 


i<5  Forel,  Die  sexuelle  Frage,  p.  463. 

17  Op.  cit.,  p.  20L 

IS  See  esp.  Freud,  Drei  Abhandlungen  zur  Sexualtheorie,  ii  and  iii. 

1^  I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  quote  a  woman's  opinion  on  the  subject 
of  sexual  education,  on  account  of  its  intrinsic  value,  and  the  general 
support  it  affords  to  the  position  taken  up  in  this  work.     "Once  a  child 


42  SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD. 

It  is  a  sufficiently  obvious  suggestion  that  the  person  who 
can  give  this  initial  warning  and  instruction  about  sexual  de- 
velopment most  appropriately  and  impressively,  after  the  silent 
watch  over  the  earlier  years  has  been  kept  by  the  parents,  and 
where  excessive  diffidence  or  some  other  circumstance  pre- 
vents the  father  from  speaking,  is  the  family  physician.  All 
due  allowance  may  be  made  for  a  mother's,  or  even  a  father's 
dislike  of  saying  even  a  few  words  on  this  subject  to  their 
young  boy,  but  what  after  all  is  to  hinder  them  from  arranging 
an  interview  for  him  with  some  kindly,  trustworthy  medical 
man,   and  introducing  him  to  it  in   some   such   way  as  this : 

"Look  here, ,  you  are  going  to  school;  I  want  Dr. to 

have  a  few  minutes'  talk  with  you.  Not  that  you  are  ill ;  only 
we  can't  look  after  you  as  well  at  school  as  we  could  at  home, 
and  he  can  give  you  some  hints  about  taking  care  of  yourself. 
Mind  you  listen,  and  don't  forget  them." 

Such  a  special  interview  would  almost  without  doubt  be 
deeply  impressive  to  the  boy,  and  he  would  feel  comparatively 
little  difficulty,  should  occasion  arise,  in  again  referring  to  his 
physician  for  advice  or  help  in  this  great  matter.  A  boy 
should,  as  far  as  possible,  be  led  to  know  that  in  case  the 
stress  of  the  conflict  within  him  becomes  insupportable,  he  has 
as  a  reserve  force — one  which  he  will  not  indeed  summon 
readily,  but  by  a  great  effort  of  moral  courage — the  kindness, 
sympathy,  and  experience  of  some  older  person.    As  things  go 


is  curious  about  any  of  the  so-called  mysteries  of  life,  that  curiosity 
should  be  met  and  satisfied  step  by  step  as  it  comes,  but  not  aroused 
prematurely,  and  children  vary  very  much  in  these  matters.  With 
those  precociously  interested,  there  should  be  no  putting  off  with 
untruths.  The  whole  beautiful  process  of  nature  unfolds  itself  easily 
enough  if  the  mother  determines  from  the  first  never  to  evade  an 
apparent  difficulty  by  telling  any  kind  of  lie.  The  one  thing  to  ensure 
is  that  a  child  gets  its  wanted  information  from  a  high-minded  and 
intelligent  source,  not  from  a  foolish  or  misleading  one."  (Mrs. 
Earle,  Mothers  and  Daughters,  Nat.  Rev.,  December,  1904,  p.  677.) 
There  are  now  so  many  opinions  supporting  the  above-quoted  one,  that 
the  task  of  citation  is  hopeless. 


SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD.  43 

at  present,  how  many  boys  there  are  who  brood  over  some 
sexual  trouble,  perhaps  largely  imaginary,  without  venturing 
to  broach  the  subject  to  either  father,  doctor,  schoolmaster,  or 
chaplain ;  who  have  one  and  all  neglected  the  duty  of  proffer- 
ing unasked  the  help  and  advice  which,  as  they  must  know 
full  well,  few  boys  can  bring  themselves  to  seek  !-0 

Next  to  parents,  schoolmasters  and  clergymen  hold  usu- 
ally the  strongest  position  for  combating  the  evil ;  nor  can  they 
justly  use  the  apathy  of  parents  as  an  excuse  to  veil  their  own 
common  neglect  in  the  matter.  "Is  A  to  shirk  his  duty  because 
B  shirks  his?  Is  not  rather  the  father's  negligence  in  this 
respect  even  in  itself  an  especially  excellent  reason  why 
schoolmasters  should  bestir  themselves,  and  try,  by  means  of 
superior  moral  training,  to  make  up  for  this  recognized  de- 
ficiency on  the  part  of  parents  ?"-i 

The  arguments  adduced  by  some  authorities,--  against 
collective  teaching  in  schools  on  the  ethics  of  sex,  are  incon- 
clusive and  unpractical.  If  boys  were  invariably  spoken  to 
separately  by  the  chaplain  or  headmaster,  the  tale  would  wax 
old  by  frequent  telling,  and  the  boys  would  compare  notes, 
probably  in  a  jocular  and  irreverent  spirit,  on  their  respective 
conversations  with  the  master.  A  manly  and  instructive  ad- 
dress given  from  time  to  time  to  a  number  would  give  a 
healthier  impression.     The  writers  referred  to  above  miscon- 


-0  The  following  extract  from  a  communication  cited  by  Havelock 
Ellis,  graphically  illustrates  the  dangerous  and  melancholy  state  of 
afifairs  still  prevailing  in  some  of  our  boarding  schools :  "For  the  rest, 
the  dormitory  was  boisterous  and  lewd.  .  .  .  My  principal  recol- 
lection now  is  of  the  filthy  mystery  of  foul  talk,  that  I  neither  cared 
for  nor  understood.  What  I  really  needed,  like  all  the  other  boys, 
was  a  little  timely  help  over  the  sexual  problems,  but  this  we  none  of 
us  got,  and  each  had  to  work  out  his  own  principle  of  conduct  for 
himself.  It  was  a  long,  difficult,  and  wasteful  process,  and  I  cannot 
but  believe  that  many  of  us  failed  in  the  endeavor." 

21  Hime,  Schoolboys'  Special  Immorality,  p.  14. 

^-E.g.,  Beale,  Our  Morality,  p.  20;  Fere,  L'Instinct  Scxuel,  E. 
tr.,  p.  310. 


44  SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD. 

ceive  the  privacy  and  delicacy  surrounding  the  sexual  feelings 
among  boys.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  their  conversations 
among  themselves,  most  boys  are  not  troubled  with  considera- 
tions of  this  kind;  at  any  rate  the  delicacy  is  not  readily  sus- 
ceptible of  injury  from  the  efforts  of  superiors  at  giving  sexual 
instruction,  provided  those  efforts  are  inspired  by  high  and 
true  motives,  and  tactfully  and  sensibly  expressed. 

H.  G.  Wells  emphasizes  the  value  of  books  containing 
physiological  information  in  sexual  education.  "The  printed 
word  may  be  such  a  quiet  counsellor."^^  There  need,  we 
think,  be  no  hesitation  as  to  the  abstract  value  of  this  method 
of  instruction  in  the  opening  years  of  adolescence,  but  even  the 
popularized  and  rightly  motived  physiological  treatise  can 
never  wholly  supersede  oral  instruction  and  the  direct  personal 
influence  of  elders. 

The  present  writer  considers,  in  general  agreement  with  the 
writer  of  a  review  published  a  few  years  since  in  The  Guardian,  that 
Dr.  Stall's  book,  What  a  Young  Boy  Ought  to  Know — all  acknowledg- 
ment of  its  high  moral  tone  being  made — is  too  prolix  for  boys  of  the 
age  for  which  it  is  intended.  Its  intermingling  of  nursery  phraseology 
with  scientific  medical  terms  has  something  unpleasing,  and  gives  it 
an  unboyish  tone ;  a  criticism  which,  it  must  be  said  in  passing,  is 
equally  applicable  to  another  highly  motived  booklet  of  sexual  instruc- 
tion, Dr.  Mary  Wood  Allen's  Almost  a  Man.  Stall's  book,  moreover, 
is  not  free  from  a  tendency  to  fussiness  and  exaggeration;  and  in 
parts  it  might  well  be  unduly  depressing  and  alarming  to  nervous 
boys.  The  present  writer,  when  consulted  by  a  parent  as  to  whether 
he  should  put  it  into  the  hands  of  his  12-year-old'  boy  just  going  to 
school,  felt  unable  to  recommend  it ;  and  this  judgment  was  endorsed, 
indeed,  had  been  anticipated  by  the  gentleman  himself.  Perhaps  The 
Guardian  reviewer  is  right  in  questioning  whether  any  grown-up. man 
has  yet  succeeded  in  putting  into  print  proper  instruction  on  sexual 
matters  for  young  boys.  Dr.  M.  J.  Exner  writes  approvingly  to  me  of 
Dr.  W.  S.  Hall's  From  Youth  into  Manhood.  I  have  not  seen  this 
book. 

Oppenheim  24  urges  that  sex  knowledge  should  be  kept 
from  boys  until  they  are  nearly  20,  so  as  not  tO'  awaken  the 

23  Mankind  in  the  Making,  p.  309. 

2-*  La  Nevrosita  nei  fanciulli,  quoted  by  Gemelli,  op.  cit.,  pp.  114ff. 


SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD.  45 

consciousness  of  sex.  Whether  or  no  this  plan  is  ideally 
right,  it  is  in  most  cases  quite  impracticable;  and  Oppenheim 
himself  admits:  "It  is  undoubtedly  better  that  they  should  be 
instructed  too  soon  than  too  late."  Gemelli's  own  view, 
though,  at  first  reading,  he  seems  adverse  to  the  sexual  in- 
struction of  the  young,  on  closer  consideration  allows  for  the 
judicious  imparting  of  sex  knowledge. 

Another  Roman  Catholic  writer,  Pere  Gillet,-"*^  empha- 
sizes the  primary  necessity  of  strengthening  the  will  and 
orientating  it  toward  the  ethical  ideal  of  self-sacrifice.  His 
general  position  as  to  the  sexual  instruction  of  the  young,  that 
it  is  necessary,  and  that,  in  imparting  it,  good  sense  and  tact 
are  at  least  as  requisite  as  technical  knowledge,  is  the  same  as 
my  own;  but  his  medievalist  habit  of  thought  appears  in  his 
tendency  to  set  religion  at  variance  with  science.  They  are  in 
reality  two  aspects  of  a  unity.  Science  illumines ;  personal 
religion  motivates  and  disciplines. 

Forster,  to  whose  views  on  sexual  education  I  have  al- 
ready referred,  favors  collective  exhortation  on  general  lines 
rather  than  collective  instruction  on  sex.  In  relation  to  the 
latter,  he  calls  attention  to  the  need  of  protecting  the  growing 
and  partly  instinctive  sense  of  modesty,  and,  consequently,  of 
not  concentrating  too  much  attention  on  specifically  erotic 
phenomena.  The  specific  sexual  instruction  ought  to  be  put 
in  the  right  perspective  in  the  young  mind.  "That  sexual 
pedagogic  is  the  best  which  says  only  as  much  as  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  about  sexual  things,  and  which  understands 
how  to  awaken  all  those  forces  of  character  and  to  form 
those  habits  which,  by  the  action  proper  to  them,  place  the 
young  man  in  the  right  spiritual  attitude  toward  his  growing 
impulses.  A  teacher  can  disseminate  with  a  few  good  words 
the  most  beneficial  impulses  and  can  procure  the  co-operation 
of  the  public  opinion  of  the  class  in  regard  to  sexual  morals. "^-j 

2-iaM.  S.  Gillet,  Innocence  et  Ignorance  (Paris), 
s-'"'  For  a  case  in  point  ct>.  Mr.  W.  Sawtell's  speech  in  the  Eugenics 
Review,  vol.  v,  No.  1,  pp.  60f. 


46  SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD. 

A  fully  developed  sexual  nature  contains  psychical  ele- 
ments such  as  (in  the  man)  chivalry,  or  those  to  which  I  have 
already  referred  in  connection  with  beauty.  Forster  is  espe- 
cially good  where  he  lays  emphasis  on  the  need  of  making 
these  elements  supremely  prominent  as  ideals,  in  any  presenta- 
tion of  sex  knowledge  to  young  minds ;  so  that,  e.g.,  a  boy  can 
firmly  grasp  the  idea  that  no  amount  of  sexual  or  other  suffer- 
ing in  his  own  person  can  justify  his  doing  a  mean  or  cruel 
thing. 

Finally  it  is  needful,  as  Gemelli  justly  urges, -^  to  respect, 
in  young  adults,  the  growing  sense  of  personal  liberty ;  to 
teach  and  encourage  them  to  follow  high  ideals  and  to  seek 
spiritual  aids  first  and  foremost,  in  the  sex  life,  from  their  own 
strengthening  perception  of  their  value ;  but  by  no  means  to 
exercise  an  irritating  pressure  based  on  no  higher  considera- 
tion than  expediency  and  the  appeal  to  fear.  We  may  apply 
here  an  illustration  given  by  the  Italian  thinker  Igino  Petrone. 
It  occurs  in  a  lecture  which  I  regard  as  an  extremely  fine  lit- 
erary antidote  to  the  despondency  and  distrust  of  the  higher 
self,  which  in  young  men  connote  and  increase  morbid  weak- 
ness of  the  will. 2"  "The  health  of  the  spirit,"  he  says,  "like 
that  of  the  body,  results  in  great  part  from  the  rapidity  of 
the  elimination  of  residues.  Life's  wisdom  consists  in  elimi- 
nating intellectual  debris,  throwing  it  out,  banishing  it  beneath 
the  threshold  of  consciousness,  deliberately  excluding  it  from 
one's  field  of  vision.  Whereas,  the  mind  which  dallies,  and 
keeps,  as  it  were,  bending  over  itself,  feeds  on  such  debris, 
drinks  the  aforesaid  elements  of  decomposition'.  And  thus  the 
soul's  expansion  is  diminished,  and  it  becomes  poisoned  at  the 
inmost  springs  of  its  life."-'^ 

Thus,  in  fine,  all  the  foregoing  considerations  converge 
upon  and  are  crowned  by  the  conception,  well  set   forth  by 

26  0/'.  cit.,  pp.  116f. 

2"  Igino   Petrone,    L'inerzia   della   volonta   e   le    energie   profonde 
dello  spirito   (Napoli,  1909). 
28  Of.  cit.,  p.  14f. 


SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD.  47 

Forster  and  Gemelli,  of  the  training  of  the  ivill.  Inasmuch  as, 
on  psychological  analysis,  will  appears  not  as  an  isolated  men- 
tal faculty,  but  as  the  final  expression  of  intellectual  and 
emotional  processes, 29  it  is  obvious  that  the  enriching  and 
informing  and  directing  of  these  processes,  the  educating  of 
the  powers  of  discrimination,  comparison,  valuation,  inherent 
in  them,  involves  the  ultimate  enabling  of  the  will  to  make, 
out  of  the  congeries  of  moral  phenomena  presented  to  the 
consciousness,  a  selection  which  shall  be  just  and  right,  or,  in 
other  words,  in  accordance  with  the  objective  categorical  prin- 
ciples which  belong  to  the  scheme  of  ethics  in  its  wholeness. 

A  wide  field  of  inquiry  is  opened  up  by  the  question : 
What  punishments  and  deterrents  are  suitable  for  checking 
sexual  immorality  and  depravity?  This  question  will  have  a 
special  interest  for  parents  and  schoolmasters,  in  view  of  the 
difficulty  of  coping  with  the  form  of  immorality  we  have  been 
considering;  nor  is  it  an  easy  question  to  answer.  It  is  doubt- 
ful whether  corporal  punishment  would  here  be  of  much,  if  any 
use.^^  Besides  breaking  the  bond  of  sympathy  and  confidence 
between  parent  and  child,  a  bond  of  the  highest  value  for  the 
proper  treatment  of  an  evil  in  child  life,  usually  begun  in 
ignorance  and  fostered  by  weakness  of  will,  the  memory  of 
corporal  punishment  may  easily,  in  many  cases,  rather  incite 
a  child  to  the  indulgence  of  depraved  imaginations  than  deter 
him  from  them.  Indeed,  the  author  thinks  well  to  state  in  this 
connection  his  own  conviction  that  the  corporal  punishment  of 
children,  for  any  offense,  should  seldom  or  never  be  accom- 
panied by  indecent  stripping. 


29  J.  N.  Baldwin,  The  Story  of  the  Mind,  p.  29;  Wundt,  Ethik, 
E.  tr.,  vol.  iii,  p.  63.  Even  if,  for  metaphysical  reasons — on  what  is 
known  as  the  autogenetic  theory  (Wundt,  op.  cit.,  p.  12) — will  is  re- 
garded as  a  distinct  psychical  entity,  its  germinal  principle  is,  at  any 
rate,  in  the  scheme  of  psychical  evolution,  indissolubly  conjoined  in 
consciousness  with  those  of  thought  and  feeling. 

•^f*In  spite  of  Bloch's  casual  sanction  of  it  (Sexual  Life  of  Our 
Time,  p.  427). 


48  SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD. 

Corporal  punishment  has  to  be  considered  in  relation  to  the 
phenomena  classed  by  sexual  scientists  as  masochism,  or  passive  algo- 
lagnia. It  is  now  well  known  that  the  infliction  of  blows  and  bodily 
insults,  especially  by  a  person  of  the  opposite  sex,  acts  in  some  subjects 
as  a  sexual  stimulus.  The  adult  who  finds  this  tendency  in  himself 
can  and  ought  to  battle  with  it  by  moral  effort.  Here  we  must  note 
that  it  may  be  incipient  in  a  young  child.  Doctors  have  long  ago 
noticed  the  tendency  of  the  sexual  instinct  to  excitation  on  the  applica- 
tion of  heat  or  sharp  blows  to  the  lumbar  region.  Fere  quotes  with 
approval  Acton's  warning  against  whipping  children  on  the  buttocks, 
on  account  of  their  consequent   (perhaps  not  immediate) ^i  liability  to 


31  This  point  is  important,  in  view  of  Kiefer's  contention  in  the 
Zeitschrift  fiir  Sexualwissenschaft,  Aug.,  1908.  He  illustrates,  with 
the  case  of  a  woman  whipping  a  boy,  the  fact  that  the  pain  of  a  violent 
whipping  will  subdue  sexual  excitement.  But  it  is  not  clear  that  it 
does  so  more  than  temporarily;  and  even  if  it  had  a  more  lasting 
effect,  success  would  be  limited  to  that  particular  form  of  masochistic 
stimulus.  One  of  Havelock  Ellis's  cases  writes :  "On  one  occasion  I 
was  beaten  with  the  back  of  a  brush,  and  the  pain  was  sufficient  to 
overcome  any  excitement;  so  that,  ever  after,  this  particular  form  of 
whipping  left  me  unaffected,  though  the  excitement  still  remained 
connected  with  forms  of  which  I  had  no  experience"  (Studies,  vol.  iii, 
ed.  2,  p.  140).  This  would  seem  the  most  that  can  be  said  for  cor- 
poral punishment  as  a  sedative  of  sexual  excitement.  In  the  case 
cited  by  Kiefer,  the  woman's  previous  whippings  of  the  boy — it  may 
be  assumed  such  whippings  had  occurred — had  assuredly  failed  to 
eliminate,  nay,  had  no  doubt  intensified,  the  masochistic  element  in  his 
sexual  instinct.  Some  of  the  whippings  Bloch's  patient  endured  at 
the  hands  of  the  maidservant  no  doubt  hurt  at  the  time ;  yet  we  read 
that  he  sought  for  more  (Bloch,  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time,  pp.  570f.). 
Hirschfeld,  in  the  same  number  of  the  Zeitschrift  fiir  Sexualwissen- 
schaft, rejects  Kiefer's  view;  and  I  believe  the  German  school  regula- 
tions forbid  the  stripping  of  children  for  corporal  punishment.  Moll, 
while  like  myself  feeling  the  impossibility  of  advocating  the  total 
disuse  of  corporal  punishment,  prefers  its  infliction  on  the  hand 
instead  of  by  the  customary  method,  as  this  latter  involves  a  specially 
"erogenic,"  i.e.,  sexually  susceptible,  area  of  the  body  (Cp.  Bloch, 
Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time,  p.  31;  Freud,  Drei  Abhandlungen  zur  Sex- 
ualtheorie,  pp.  45,  51f.)  ;  and  when  he,  with  other  scientists  (e.g., 
Thoinot,  op.  cit.,  p.  429),  calls  attention  to  a  further  disadvantage  of 
whipping,  viz.,  that  it  sometimes  excites  sexually  the  agent  as  well  as 
the  victim,  one  feels  strongly  that  the  circumstances  call  at  least  for 


SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD.  49 

sexual  excitement.  If  stripping  is  resorted  to,  and  if  the  punishment 
is  inflicted  by,  e.g.,  a  woman  on  a  young  boy,  the  danger  is  of  course 
increased.  The  disapproval,  on  general  grounds,  of  whipping  expressed 
by  Mrs.  Ennis  Richmond  in  her  excellent  book,  Boyhood,  gains  greatly 
in  force  when  whipping  is  viewed  in  its  connection  with  sexual  emo- 
tion. Krafft-Ebing  emphatically  calls  attention  to  this  danger  ;3ia  and 
Havelock  Ellis,  in  his  recently  published  third  volume  of  Studies, 
deals  fully  with  the  subject  of  whipping  in  this  connection.  The  cases 
cited  by  him  afford  further  confirmation  of  the  fact  of  which  the 
present  writer  for  his  own  part  was  already  sufficiently  convinced,  that 
whipping  has  powerful  sexual  associations  in  the  minds  of  some  chil- 
dren, and  both  originates  and  develops  within  them  the  pernicious 
habit  of  self-abuse.  In  a  general  connection  with  the  psychic  phe- 
nomena of  algolagnia,  I  may  here  observe  that  the  compilers  of  the 
Priest's  Prayerbook,  who  venture  to  recommend  varying  degrees  of 
pain  as  a  prophylaxis  of  sexual  desire,  do  not  seem  aware  of  the  fact 
that  pain  is  often  one  of  the  most  successful  of  sexual  stimuli.^ib 

The  stimulating  effects  of  whipping  are  referred  to  by 
Zockler.^'-  Gemelh,  who  finds  himself  obliged  to  regard  with 
constant  tenderness  the  traditional  ideas  and  practices  of  the 
Roman  Church,  cautiously  pronounces  from  the  sexual  point 
of  view  against  whipping,  whilst  trying  to  avoid  the  sem- 
blance of  discountenancing  its  historic  occurrences  in  Christian 
asceticism. 33 

Expulsion  from  school,^*  again,  is  too  severe  a  punish- 
ment for  ordinary  lapses  into  this  sin  among  boys.  In  regard, 
indeed,  to  the  major  evil  which  exists  in  some  schools,  it  is 
hard  to  see  how  any  other  measure  than  expulsion  can  be 
resorted  to  in  the  case  of  the  principal  offenders,  though  it 
may  not  be  always  necessary  to  inflict  this  punishment  upon 
the  younger  boys  who  have  perhaps  been  pressed  into  becoming 


the  total  disuse  of  stripping,  and  for  the  most  restricted  use  possible 
of  this  form  of  punishment  in  general.  {Cp.  Moll,  The  Sexual  Life  of 
the  Child,  E.  tr.,  pp.  316ff.) 

31a  Psychopathia  Sexualis,  ed.  7,  E.  tr.,  p.  28. 

31b  cp.  Ellis  u.  Moll,  Handb.  d.  Sexualwissenschaften,  p.  640. 

32  Askese  und  Monchthum,  p.  609. 

33  Op.  cit.,  p.  52. 

34  See  Hime,  Schoolboys'  Special  Immorality,  pp.  34fif. 

4 


50  SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD. 

the  accomplices  of  a  crime  of  which  they  were  unable  to  realize 
the  enormity.  Indeed,  it  must  be  observed  further  that  as 
regards  the  principal  offender,  expulsion  from  school  alone 
will  not  always  meet  his  case.  The  offense  might  be  com- 
mitted in  a  reformatory  or  industrial  school,  where  expulsion 
would  not  be  possible,  as  nothing  would  be  gained  by  turning 
the  criminal  loose  upon  society. 

Probably  no  one  punishment  or  remedy,  in  the  present 
stage  of  human  insight  into  moral  problems,  can  be  proposed 
as  likely  to  be  generally  effective  in  the  work  of  eradicating 
and  destroying  this  gross  form  of  sexual  crime.  Like  other 
sins,  it  occurs  amid  varying  moral  and  physical  conditions, 
involving  different  degrees  of  responsibility.  For  the  consid- 
eration and  appreciation  of  these,  the  combined  aid  of  religious 
thought,  legal  science,  and  pathological  study  is  certainly 
required.  By  such  means  it  may  become  possible  to  define,  with 
an  approximation  to  justice  in  each  case,  by  what  kind  of  pun- 
ishment, and  with  what  degree  of  severity  the  occurrence  of 
one  of  these  unnatural  crimes  ought  to  be  marked.  The  treat- 
ment of  such  cases  as  are  proved  to  involve  mental  and  accom- 
panying moral  deficiency,  cases  which  cannot  be  dealt  with  by 
the  usual  disciplinary  methods,  seems  to  lie  largely  in  the 
domain  of  medical  science,  aided  by  the  necessary  legal  ma- 
chinery. They  may  call  for  detention  in  a  special  institution,-'^ ■"' 
or  even  for  a  surgical  operation. ^^ 

But  as  far  as  concerns  the  minor  evil  alone,  the  continual 
dread  of  being  expelled  if  his  fault  became  known  to  the  mas- 
ters would  effectually  deter  a  boy  from  seeking  advice  and  help 
at  their  hands,  though  he  might  be  struggling  manfully  against 
the  habit,  and  suffering  mental  anguish  which  a  few  words 
from  an  older  person  would  readily  allay.  Further,  as  Dr. 
Hime  points  out,  an  occasional  expulsion  would  simply  have 
the  effect  of  causing  other  boys  addicted  to  the  vice  to  sin 

^'^Cp.  L.  Ferriani,  Per  la  Moralita  nelle  scuole  (II  Rogo,  Ann. 
xi,  Num.  1). 

^''See  further,  chapter  xvi. 


SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD.  51 

more  craftily.  The  policy  of  expulsion  could  hardly  be  con- 
sistently carried  out.  It  would  be  a  matter  of  the  greatest 
difficulty  to  convict  boys  of  the  sin;  or  if  some  infallible  means 
were  devised  for  detecting  the  self-abusers,  the  number  of 
them  would  be  an  ample  rednctio  ad  absnrdnm  of  the  policy 
of  expulsion.  Human  punishments,  as  long  as  they  do  not 
interfere  with  the  sexual  function  itself,  can  never  prove  an 
adequate  means  of  checking  the  habit  of  self-abuse,  in  either 
the  child  or  the  adult.  Instead  of  being  eager  to  apply  penal 
measures,  school  authorities  and  persons  in  similar  positions 
should  appeal  by  moral  and  religious  teaching,  by  sensible 
hygienic  precautions,  and  by  disciplinary  arrangements,  to  the 
higher  nature  and  true  self-love  of  those  whom  they  have 
the  care  of. 

Cases  requiring  expulsion  or  other  punishments  among 
boys  will  be  comparatively  rare.  Sometimes  there  will  be  a 
boy  of  generally  loose  moral  tone  and  conversation,  or  one 
against  whom  a  charge  of  obstinate  self-indulgence  can  be 
proved,  whom  it  might  be  the  best  course,  or  the  only  possible 
course,  to  expel;  but  most  boys,  even  though  habitual  self- 
abusers,  are  not  such  from  conscious,  persistent  recklessness. 
They  would  thankfully  respond  to  a  sympathetic  teaching  on 
this  subject,  and  listen  respectfully  to  warnings  conveyed  in 
tactful  and  sensible  terms,  against  the  dangers  attendant  upon 
impurity. 

I  have  already  sufficiently  emphasized  the  fact  that  all 
treatment  of  this  delicate  question  in  homes  and  schools  must 
be  undertaken  with  good  judgment.  For  a  parent  or  a  school- 
master to  exercise  an  obvious,  fussy  supervision  of  a  child's 
diet,  hygiene,  and  conduct ;  to  dwell  upon  the  dangers  of  sexual 
impurity  with  morbid  emphasis;  to  afifect  a  general  puritanical 
suspicion  of  the  sexual  function  and  emotions ;  to  neglect  sym- 
pathetic observation  of  the  varying  strength  of  passion  in 
different  individuals,  would  be  to  defeat  his  own  ends. 

"So  few  families  can  give,"  says  Professor  Letourneau,-"'^ 

3'^  Evolution  of  Marriage,  p.  356. 


52  SEXUALITY    IN    CHILDHOOD. 

"or  know  how  to  give,  a  healthy  physical,  moral,  and  intellec- 
tual education  to  the  child,  that  in  this  domain  large  encroach- 
ments of  the  state  are  probable,  even  desirable."  The  assertion 
is  undoubtedly  all  too  true ;  the  inference  would  have  to  be 
carefully  considered.  For  the  state,  e.g.,  to  enforce  circum- 
cision, as  some  legislatures  enforce  vaccination,  might  be  a 
physical  benefit  to  the  community,  but  it  would  be  purchased 
at  the  cost  of  a  further  loss  of  what  we  already  part  with  too 
quickly  in  return  for  supposed  advantages — personal  independ- 
ence. It  is  better  in  such  matters  to  arrive  at  reform  through 
education  than  through  legislation.  In  the  foregoing  pages  it 
has  not  been  found  possible  to  project  the  outlines  of  any  pro- 
gram such  as  might  find  expression  in  legislation ;  nor  has 
even  a  conception  of  uniformity  in  the  methods  of  sexual 
education  been  reached.  The  object  held  in  view  has  been  a 
more  general  one,  to  stimulate  thought  on  the  question,  and 
to  call  attention  to  particular  points  of  physical  and  moral 
treatment  which,  in  view  of  all  the  grave  circumstances  of  the 
problem,  ought  to  be  considered  and  applied  more  dili- 
gently than  is  done  at  present  by  the  majority  of  parents  and 
guardians. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Mixing  of  the  Sexes  in  Schools  and 
Institutions. 

Social  Intercourse — Family  Life — Sexual  Repugnance — Co-educa- 
tion— Its  Defects  in  Theory  and  in  Practice — Homosexuality  in  Schools 
— Social  Intercourse  in  General. 

It  is  maintained  in  some  quarters  that  the  promotion  of 
free  social  intercourse  between  the  sexes  tends  to  diininish 
the  force  of  sexual  attraction  on  its  animal  side.  It  is  urged 
that  the  immorality  existing  in  boys'  schools,  and  in  other  in- 
stitutions where  boys  or  men  are  grouped  together  and  isolated 
from  the  other  sex,  would  disappear  if  the  masculine  element 
were  softened  and  purified  by  the  influence  which  girls  and 
women,  if  admitted  as  members  of  such  institutions,  would 
exert. 1 

This,  however,  in  the  opinion  of  the  present  writer,  is  a 
doubtful  proposition.  It  may  indeed  be  considered  as  proven 
that  when  free  social  intercourse  exists  among  children  from 
infancy,  it  produces  an  absence  of  sexual  desire  between  the 
males  and  females  of  those  particular  groups  of  children.  The 
purity  of  family  life  seems  to  be  rooted  in  this  instinctive  sexual 
repugnance  existing  between  male  and  female  children  who 
have  mingled  freely  together  in  the  earliest  years  of  childhood, 
and  had  the  sight  of  one  another's  nakedness  in  the  nursery.- 

It  is  instructive  to  mark  the  care  with  which  many  primitive  peo- 
ples separate  the  youth  of  both  sexes  until  a  marriageable  age  is 
reached.  Modern  society  should  deliberate  anxiously  before  it  relaxes, 
or  at  least  before  it  discards,  this  care.     Sexual  taboo,  as  is  observed 


1  For  a  recent  enthusiastic  advocacy  of  this  view,  see  Die  Neue 
Gen.,  Jahrg.  10,  Heft  5. 

2  See  Westermarck,   Hist,   of  Hum.  Marriage,  p.  353;    Cp.  Moll, 
The  Sexual  Life  of  the  Child,  p.  71. 

(53) 


54  THE    SEXES    IN    SCHOOLS. 

by  Crawley,  is  one  of  the  influences  which  have  assisted  the  elimina- 
tion of  sexual  passion  from  the  family  circle.  That  influence,  however, 
is  not  in  itself  sufficient  to  account  for  the  general  horror  of  incestuous 
relations.  The  taboos  have  not  in  a  general  way  acted  as  a  sedative 
of  sexual  desire;  nor  can  we  assume  that  they  would  have  this  result 
in  the  particular  direction  of  the  family.  A  psychological  factor,  such 
as  the  instinctive  repugnance  described  by  Westermarck,  seems,  there- 
fore, a  necessary  supposition.  It  should  be  added  that  Westermarck's 
argument  relative  to  the  existence  of  this  instinct  is  sounder  than 
Crawley  (op.  cit.,  p.  444)  allows.  The  development  of  an  instinct  of 
repugnance  between  persons  living  together  from  infancy  does  not 
necessarily  presuppose  a  general  use  of  intercourse  between  persons 
thus  situated  at  some  remote  period.  The  instinct — which  is  not  de- 
veloped on  a  basis  of  fear  of  the  (admittedly  uncertain)  evil  results 
of  inbreeding,  as  Crawley  supposes — arises  naturally,  like  other  sexual 
repugnances,  in  the  midst  of  conditions  adverse  to  sexual  stimulation. 
It  is,  therefore,  unsafe  to  draw  inferences,  as  some  thinkers  have  done 
(Wells,  Mankind  in  the  Making,  p.  65),  from  the  horror  of  incest  to 
the  projected  observance  of  other  sexual  taboos  of  a  more  general 
kind  in  civilized  communities;  for  the  training  of  the  will-power  is 
unable  to  produce  a  guarantee  of  such  general  observance,  except 
where  an  instinctive  sexual  repulsion  is  also  formed. 

Recent  anthropology  has  produced,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  no  suc- 
cessful refutation  of  Westermarck's  theory.  Its  originator  has  lately 
reaffirmed  it  against  criticisms,  including  some  from  the  pen  of  Dr. 
J.  G.  Frazer.2a 

Westermarck's  theory  is  modified  by  Havelock  Ellis  (Studies,  iv, 
pp.  204ff.),  who  maintains  that  the  horror  of  incest  has  a  merely  nega- 
tive basis,  due  to  the  fact  that  sexual  stimuli  do  not  come  into  promi- 
nent notice  among  persons  brought  up  from  infancy  in  the  same 
household ;  and  that  there  is  no  need  to  infer  the  existence  of  an 
instinct  of  repulsion.  This  explanation  certainly  helps  to  the  proper 
understanding  of,  Westermarck's  hypothesis ;  but  it  is  not  clear  that  it 
necessitates'  the  proposed  alteration  in  the  statement  of  it.  For  if  a 
possible  object  of  appetite  presents  no  stimuli  and  possesses  no  attract- 
iveness, it  may  and  does  surely  happen  that  this  negative  state  of 
things  gives  rise  to  a  positive  repulsion,  though  one  that  is  not  every- 
where uniformly  accentuated.  In  any  case,  the  argument  of  the  present 
chapter  is  not  aff^ected.  It  remains  true  that  sexual  stimuli  operate  in 
mixed  institutions,  in  a  way  which  is  not  found  in  households. 


2a  Westermarck,    Marriage    Ceremonies    in    Morocco,    pp.    312ff., 
370ff. 


THE    SEXES    IN    SCHOOLS.  55 

But  quite  a  different  set  of  conditions  is  introduced  by  the 
proposal  to  allow  free  social  intercourse  in  schools  and  other 
institutions  between  boys  and  girls  who  have  not  been  inmates 
of  the  same  nursery,  and  in  fact  have  never  seen  one  another 
until  near  the  age  of  puberty.  That  such  an  arrangement 
should  render  possible  an  imitation  of  family  life  in  schools  is 
certainly  a  delusion,  because  it  fails  to  observe  one  of  the  main 
conditions  of  family  purity,  viz.,  social  contact  from  infancy.^ 
There  is  no  reason  to  think  that  the  instinctive  sexual  repug- 
nance mentioned  as  existing  in  the  other  case  would  here  come 
into  play  at  all.  It  is  in  fact  extremely  difficult  to  think  that 
the  force  of  sexual  desire  usually  experienced  by  a  growing  boy 
would  not  be  largely  increased  by  the  nearness  to  him  of  girls 
toward  whom  he  would  have  no  reason  whatever  for  feeling  a 
sexual  distaste.  Sexual  attraction  would  make  itself  felt  at 
least  as  much  as — almost  certainly  more  than — it  does  in  ordi- 
nary circumstances. 

In  short,  the  theory  of  a  free,  and  at  the  same  time  a  pla- 
tonic,  social  intercourse  between  the  unmarried  members  of 
the  sexes  is  not  sound."*  Under  modern  conditions  of  life  it 
cannot  be  made  thorough-going.  Our  conventional  ideas  as 
to  the  necessity  of  clothes  alone  suffice  to  upset  it.  There  is 
now  no  return  for  civilized  races  to  that  preventive  o^  over- 
heated desire — the  constant  sight  of  nakedness. ■''     The  effect 


^  This  all  important  condition  is  entirely  ignored  by  one  of  the 
most  recent  advocates  of  co-education,  and  apparently  by  those  thinkers 
upon  whom  he  relies.  Co-education,  edited  by  Alice  Woods,  p.  29 
(Longmans). 

^  That  is,  of  course,  in  the  case  of  those  who  are  within  the  age 
during  which  sexual  passion  is  active.  We  need  not  deny  the  possible 
existence  of  platonic  friendships  here  and  there. 

5  No  doubt  a  healthier  and  less  superstitious  feeling  about  naked- 
ness than  the  prevailing  one  is  to  be  desired,  as  Bloch  and  Ellis  have 
urged  (Bloch,  The  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time,  ch.  vii;  H.  Ellis,  Studies, 
vol.  vi,  ch.  iii).  It  is  well  to  keep  that  idea  in  view.  But  Forster  is 
right  in  practice,  where  he  says  that  whoever  thinks  of  the  sight  of 
nakedness  as  a  practicable  sedative  of  sexual  feeling  in  modern  society 


56  THE    SEXES    IN    SCHOOLS. 

of  such  a  school  system  would  be  like  that  of  semi-nudity,  as 
when  a  woman  in  evening  dress  excites  passion  by  exposing, 
or  thinly  veiling,  a  portion  of  her  graceful  person.  It  could 
not  be  the  matter-of-fact  indifference  to  nakedness  and  conse- 
quent chastity  manifested  by  some  primitive  races  of  mankind. 
At  the  bottom  of  the  social  companionship  desiderated  by  the 
advocates  of  the  aforesaid  school  arrangement  there  must  still 
be  that  sense,  so  stimulating  to  human  curiosity  and  animal 
passion,  that  a  mystery,  the  delight  of  humankind  to  explore, 
has  been  brought  close  by  the  wisdom  of  seniors,  and  yet  is 
hidden ;  that  they  have  placed  a  fruit  near  to  the  hand  and  eye, 
and  yet  commanded  that  it  shall  not  be  touched  or  even  seen.^ 
The  social  intercourse  would  have  to  be  darkened  by  a  strict 
supervision,  or  become  merely  nominal.  However  trusting  the 
authorities  of  a  school  managed  on  this  system  might  be,  they 
would  have  to  remind  the  inmates  by  a  large  number  of  pre- 
cautions that  the  companionship  of  boys  and  girls  was  under 
suspicion,  and  could  only  be  tolerated  within  certain  carefully 
defined  limits. 

The  actual  experience  of  the  present  writer  may  be  worth 
referring  to  in  this  connection.  He  has  no  practical  knowledge 
of  the  mixing  of  the  sexes  in  American  universities,  but  he  is  a 
graduate  of  the  New  Zealand  University,  where  the  sexes  are 
also  mixed,  men  and  women  attending  lectures  in  the  same 
classroom.  In  his  opinion  the  mixing  of  the  sexes,  from  a 
social  point  of  view,  amounted  to  very  little.  Young  men  and 
women  saw  one  another  at  a  distance  in  the  classroom,  in  the 
same  way  as  they  might  at  church ;  they  met  on  rare  occasions 


deceives  himself;  or,  at  best,  is  thinking  of  the  very  few  who  are 
morally  educated  up  to  the  point  where  it  is  safely  applicable  {op.  cit., 
p.  213). 

^  I  observe  that  Forel  in  speaking  of  co-education  has  employed 
the  same  metaphor  (Die  sexuelle  Frage,  p.  474).  He  suggests  that 
the  forbidden  fruit  loses  its  attractiveness  through  being  constantly 
seen  close  at  hand.  I  doubt  this.  Such  an  expectation  is  at  variance 
with  a  considerable  body  of  experience,  and  contradicts  the  reason 
of  the  thing. 


THE    SEXES    IN    SCHOOLS.  57 

at  picnics  and  other  social  functions ;  they  sat  in  the  same  room 
during  meetings  of  the  debating  society.  But  there  was  noth- 
ing approaching  to  close  and  familiar  contact,  except  in  iso- 
lated cases,  when  a  love  afifair  began,  as  it  might  have  done 
anywhere.  After  the  day's  work,  both  men  and  women  dis- 
persed to  their  homes  and  lodgings,  and  in  fact  one  might  very 
well  pass  through  the  whole  course  of  three  or  four  years 
without  getting  more  than  a  bowing  acquaintance  with  the  lady 
students. 

Such  an  arrangement  has  probably  no  special  influence  on 
sexual  passion  one  way  or  the  other.*'''  Students  at  such  a  uni- 
versity probably  feel  just  as  strong  sexual  inclinations  as  bank 
clerks  and  other  young  men  do,  and  no  more  so. 

If,  however,  the  question  as  to  the  desirability  of  the  social 
mixing  of  the  sexes  has  reference  to  the  arrangements  of  a 
boarding-school,  the  case  is  very  different.  The  present  writer 
was  formerly  chaplain  to  a  New  Zealand  industrial  school,  a 
boarding  establishment,  where  the  sexes  were  mixed.  The 
same  arrangement  existed  in  other  New  Zealand  schools  of 
this  kind.  A  strong  protest  was  made  in  1899  against  this  sys- 
tem, and  evidence  was  adduced  proving  that  acts  of  immorality 
between  boys  and  girls  had  taken  place,  and  that  the  system 
increased  sexual  passion  among  the  inmates  to  an  undesirable 
extent.  It  was  claimed,  on  the  other  hand,  by  the  Education 
Department  that  the  fact  that  boys  and  girls  had  different 
classrooms  and  playgrounds,  and  were  in  other  ways  kept 
apart,  the  strictness  of  the  general  supervision  rendered  the 
occurrence  of  the  alleged  evils  improbable.  But  this  very  con- 
tention showed  that  the  system  was  suspicious  of  itself,  and 
was  in  fact  fatal  to  the  theory  of  it.'^  Nor  had  the  agitators 
much  difficulty  in  showing  that  they  were  justified,  not  merely 
on  theoretical  grounds,  but  in  view  of  the  facts,  in  asking  for 
the  reors^anization  of  the  schools.     At  last  the  then  Minister 


Ga  Cp.  H.  Ellis,  Studies,  vol.  iii,  ed.  2,  p.  328. 

'^  As,   indeed,   modern   advocates   of   co-education    virtually   admit 
that  the  co-educational  system  must  be  (op.  cit.,  p.  111). 


58  THE    SEXES    IN    SCHOOLS. 

of  Education  was  forced  to  promise  the  reforms  asked  for, 
the  grouping  of  the  sexes  into  separate  institutions,  and  other 
measures  for  classifying  the  inmates,  and  a  debate  a  few  days 
afterward  in  the  New  Zealand  Parliament  resulted  in  a 
reiteration  by  other  ministers  of  this  promise,  which  has  been 
fulfilled. 

The  merits  and  demerits  of  co-education,  then,  in  spite  of 
all  that  has  been  said  in  its  favor  by  some  high  authorities  on 
sex  questions,  are  by  no  means  clear  as  yet.  It  is  true  that  in 
early  youth  the  direction  of  the  sexual  impulse  is  undeter- 
mined,^ so  that  under  the  present  system  of  grouping  the  sexes 
in  different  schools  there  is  a  danger  in  certain  cases  of  homo- 
sexual tendencies  being  developed,  but  the  presence  of  this 
moral  danger  is  not  so  marked  as  to  justify  as  an  alternative 
the  introduction  of  the  more  certain  dangers  inseparable  from 
co-education.  Recognize  the  homosexual  tendency  as  fully  as 
we  may,  it  yet  cannot  be  maintained  that  it  receives  as  rapid 
and  general  a  development  in  human  nature  as  the  heterosexual. 

The  development  of  homosexual  tendencies  in  a  school 
may  be  held  in  check  by  moral  suasion,  hygienic  instruction, 
and  a  good  prefect  system.  Some  cases  of  homosexuality,  it 
is  true,  if  properly  investigated,  might  yield  results  similar  to 
those  so  carefully  examined  by  Havelock  Ellis ;  they  might 
indicate  a  congenital  condition  in  which  the  misdirection  of  the 
sex  instinct  appeared.  Modern  investigators  such  as  Ellis 
show  convincingly  that  such  conditions  do  occasionally  exist, 
and  they  must  of  course  be  taken  account  of  in  forming  an 
estimate  of  responsibility  in  regard  to  homosexual  acts.  But 
the  appeal  to  the  sense  of  responsibility,  the  endeavor  to  rouse 
the  moral  sense  in  the  matter,  must  not  be  discredited  on  that 
account.  Besides  the  physical  conditions  which  give  a  special 
impulse  to  the  inverted  tendency  in  some  subjects,  there  has  to 
be  recognized  the  existence  in  many  schools  of  an  evil  tradition 
of  homosexuality,  and  it  was  to  the  reckless  perpetuation  of 


8  Moll,  op.  cit.,  p.  5. 


THE    SEXES    IN    SCHOOLS.  59 

this  tradition  by  unprincipled  boys  that  most  of  the  cases  of 
sodomy  in  schools  that  have  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
present  writer  appeared  to  be  due.^  Some  at  least  of  the  sub- 
jects of  the  sexual  misdirection  seemed  from  their  conversation 
to  be  perfectly  capable  of  heterosexual  emotions,  and  to  be 
aware  of  the  immorality  of  their  homosexual  proceedings. 
Further,  the  homosexual  temptation  appeals  to  the  majority  of 
boys  in  boarding-schools  with  little  or  no  force ;  not  merely 
their  educated  moral  sense,  but  their  healthier  instincts  repudi- 
ate it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  heterosexual  temptation  is,  as 
might  be  expected,  a  very  real  and  general  one,  and  it  would 
become  even  more  powerful  than  it  is  at  present  in  a  school  if 
girls  were  constantly  brought  into  close  proximity  to  the  boys. 
In  short,  it  seems  futile  to  uphold  co-education  as  a  preventive 
of  homosexual  tendencies,  unless  the  consequences  of  the  devel- 
opment of  heterosexual  tendencies  be  allowed  for  in  the  school 
system,  and,  as  has  been  shown  in  the  present  chapter,  the  claim 
that  co-education  is  a  general  sedative  of  sexuality  has  not  been 
sufficiently  substantiated. 

The  present  writer  is  inclined  to  extend  this  opinion  to 
the  case  of  day  schools. ^^  There  does  not  seem  much  to  be 
gained  by  mixing  the  sexes  in  class,  and  day  scholars  have 
ample  opportunities  of  enjoying  the  brightness  that  comes  from 
social  fellowship  with  companions  of  the  other  sex  after  school 
hours  and  in  their  own  homes.  It  is  pretty  certain — facts 
enough  have  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  writer  to  allow  of 
forming  an  induction — that  a  considerable  element  of  curiosity 
and  desire  in  respect  of  sexual  matters  enters  into  conversation, 


^  Tarnowsky  recognizes  the  importance  in  this  connection  of  the 
spirit  of  imitation  (L'Instinct  Sexuel  et  ses  Manifestations  Morbides, 
p.  109)  ;  and  Gemelli  quite  supports  me  here,  "We  must  by  no  means 
conckide  that  any  and  every  irregularity,  either  in  act  or  in  erotic 
feeling,  is  an  infallible  sign  of  sexual  perversion;  for  there  are  aber- 
rations of  the  moral  sense  which  are  merely  partial  and  transitory, 
and  have  not  the  character  of  true  sexual  anomaly"  (op.  cit.,  p.  199). 

^^  Cp.  some  remarks  by  Mr.  Paul  Swain  in  The  Church  Times, 
April  18,  1913,  p.  531. 


60  THE   SEXES    IN    SCHOOLS. 

perhaps  has  even  worse  effects,  in  the  day  schools.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  grouping  of  the  sexes  by  themselves  tends  to 
produce  a  certain  mental  attitude  of  shyness  about  the  sexual 
act  itself.  It  may  not  be  worth  much,  but  at  least  it  implies 
that  sexual  intercourse,  however  much  it  may  be  talked  about 
in  the  school,  and  however  much  the  thought  of  it  may  incite 
to  solitary  immorality,  is  still  thought  of  as  a  big  thing.  It  is 
not  so  thought  of  if  our  suspicions  about  life  in  the  mixed  day 
schools  are  at  all  well  grounded. 

In  short,  it  is  positively  absurd  to  bring  young  people  of 
opposite  sexes  into  contact  and  expect  them  not  to  have  sexual 
thoughts  about  one  another.  To  suppose  that  social  intercourse 
can  be  allowed  within  limits  which  the  wisdom  of  seniors  can 
always  rigidly  define  is  contrary  to  reason.  Either  keep  boys  in 
boys'  schools,  and  try  by  good  and  healthy  influence  to  banish 
sexual  passion  entirely,  or  as  nearly  so  as  possible,  from  their 
lives,  until  they  reach  a  riper  age;  or  else,  if  you  will  admit 
ihem  to  mixed  schools,  recognize  that  there  is  a  possibility  of 
connections  somewhat  closer  than  mere  social  companionships 
being  formed,  and  hope  and  pray  that  lasting  sexual  love  may 
be  their  outcome,  and  that  meanwhile  no  element  of  dishonor 
may  enter  into  them.^i  But  don't  throw  sexual  allurements 
into  young  people's  way,  and  flatter  yourself  with  the  belief 
that,  under  the  influence  of  some  vague  sentiment,  they  will 
not  notice  them,  or  be  affected  by  them. 

In  regard  to  the  tone  of  sexual  morality  in  a  school,  the 
teachers'  knowledge  of  it  must  frequently  be  set  down  as  of 
little  worth.  The  school  with  which  the  author  has  described 
his  connection  in  this  chapter  would  no  doubt  by  its  former 
managers  and  teachers  have  been  cheerfully  and  confidently 
added  to  the  list  of  schools  drawn  up  by  the  authors  of  Co- 
education.    Nevertheless,  as  has  been  said,  immorality  existed 


11  Dr.  Karl  Wilker  admits  and  defends  the  existence  of  an  erotic 
element  (not  necessarily  actualizing  itself  in  immorality)  in  the  life 
of  co-educational  schools  (Die  Neue  Generation,  Jahrg.  8,  Heft  3). 


THE    SEXES    IN    SCHOOLS.  61 

between   the   sexes   in   that   school   under  the   co-educational 
system. 

My  view  of  co-education  is  also  that  of  many  highly  qualified 
German  schoolteachers.  A  passage  from  the  Italian  magazine  Luce, 
giving  their  opinions,  is  quoted  in  Vita  (Aprile,  1910,  pp.  118f.),  in 
which  R.  Calvino  sets  out  the  objections.  The  moral  one  alone  con- 
cerns us  here.  Gemelli  {op.  cit.,  pp.  54,  122f.)  is  decidedly  against 
co-education. 

Generally,  with  regard  to  the  social  intercourse  of  the 
sexes,  not  only  in  childhood  and  youth,  but  thereafter,  its  influ- 
ence on  sexual  morality  cannot  be  gauged  by  its  immediate 
visible  results.  Some  societies  boast  that  under  the  aegis  of 
their  public  opinion,  men  and  women  can  travel  together  in  the 
sleeping  compartments  of  railway  trains  without  danger  to 
morality;  women  being,  presumably,  too  pure,  and  men,  in  so 
public  a  place,  too  cautious,  to  attempt  any  violation  of  the 
laws  of  chastity.  And  it  is  claimed  that  such  "free  and  healthy 
social  intercourse  of  the  sexes"  is  one  of  the  most  powerful 
antidotes  to  impurity. 

It  is  doubtful,  however,  whether  this  claim  will  bear  close 
investigation.  Common  sense  tells  us,  to  be  sure,  that  no  man 
possessed  of  reason,  however  strong  his  desires  may  be,  will 
venture  to  tamper  with  a  woman,  in  face  of  immediate  pub- 
licity. Nor  would  a  woman,  in  such  circumstances,  make  too 
obvious  advances  to  a  man.  But  it  cannot  be  said  that  such  free 
relations  as  are  implied  in  bathing  in  company,  or  travelling 
together  by  night  in  the  same  sleeping  compartment,  have  any 
definitely  sedative  tendency  as  affecting  unmarried  people. ^^ 
Such  is  not  their  ultimate  and  logical  result.  Customs  such  as 
these  are  at  best  indifferent.  A  temporary  repression  of  sexual 
emotion,  owing  to  the  requirements  of  publicity,  cannot  be 
accepted  as  a  complete,  or  even  as  a  partial,  solution  of  the 
social  problem  of  unchastity. 


12  Forel  {op.  cit.,  p.  90)  remarks  on  the  fairly  common  practice 
of.  "flirting" — the  term  covers  gross  sensuality — in  railway  carriages, 
busses,  etc. 


CHAPTER  V. 

The  Battle  of  Chastity  in  the  Adult. 

Morbidity — Sexual  Neurasthenia — Consequences  of  Sexual  Sins — 
Celibacy — Fornication — A  Sophism  and  a  Truth — Necessity  of  Mar- 
riage— Christian  Doctrine  of  Indulgentia — Self-sacrihce — Regulations 
in  Certain  Professions — Personal  Religion. 

In  the  progress  of  sexual  development  from  childhood  to 
maturity  individual  responsibility  for  the  preservation  of 
chastity  gradually  increases.  Fathers,  mothers,  schoolmasters  and 
all  to  whom  the  care  of  yoinig  people  is  entrusted,  may  indeed, 
as  has  already  been  shown,  do  much  to  prevent  the  premature 
and  disastrous  kindling  of  the  sexual  fire  within  a  young  child's 
being.  But  when  childhood  has  passed  away,  responsible  man 
in  the  opening  years  of  adult  life  must  himself  prove  the  fires 
of  Moloch,  whether  they  will  show  themselves  mild  or  fierce 
toward  him.  In  many  lives  comes  a  time  when  the  soul  must 
review  the  past,  defiled  by  secret  impurity  coinmitted  in  igno- 
rance or  with  puerile  waywardness ;  must  bear  the  burden  of 
the  present,  with  its  active  desire  and  its  nervous  dread ;  must 
face  the  harassing,  uncertain  future.  Many  morbid  imagina- 
tions, excited  by  vague  rumors  about  the  awful  results  of  sex- 
ual misdemeanors,  conjure  up  the  picture  of  an  appalling 
destiny,  the  hideous  blighting  of  all  the  promise  of  life. 

Such  gloomy  thoughts  are  theirs,  such  blackness  of  de- 
spondency, as  erstwhile  overwhelmed  a  seer's  brooding  soul,  as 
in  his  vision  he  beheld  souls  stained  with  sexual  impurity 
lamenting  in  the  outer  darkness,  the  gates  of  the  Paradise  of 
health,  usefulness,  and  glory  closed  forever  against  them. 
"What  profit  is  it  to  us  that  there  are  reserved  habitations  of 
health  and  safety,  whereas  we  have  lived  wickedly  ?  And  that 
the  Glory  of  the  Most  High  shall  defend  them  that  have  led 
a  pure  life,  whereas  we  have  walked  in  the  most  wicked  ways 
(62) 


THE    BATTLE   OF   CHASTITY.  63 

of  all?  And  that  there  shall  be  showed  a  Paradise  wherein  is 
abundance  and  healing,  but  we  shall  not  enter  into  it,  for  we 
have  walked  in  unpleasant  places?  And  that  the  faces  of  them 
which  have  used  abstinence  shall  shine  above  the  stars,  whereas 
our  faces  shall  be  blacker  than  the  darkness?"  (II  Esdr. 
7:51f.) 

Such  an  utter  loss  of  both  temporal  and  eternal  manhood, 
vigor  and  glory  is  anticipated  by  despondent  young  men  who 
experience  the  bitter  effects  of  sexual  sins.  But  although  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  abuse  of  the  sexual  function  is  responsible 
for  much  moral,  mental,  and  physical  suffering,  and  indeed,  if 
obstinately  persisted  in,  may  throw  off  all  possibility  of  control 
and  prove  a  chief  factor  in  a  result  of  ruin,  it  is  none  the  less 
true  that  a  large  amount  of  exaggeration  surrounds  the  tem- 
poral punishment  of  this  class  of  sins.  There  are  subtle  re- 
storative processes  in  nature,  potent  laws  of  healing^  in  the 
physical  as  in  the  moral  world,  and  assuredly  no  honest  effort 
to  break  from  the  bonds  of  impurity,  though  these  have  been 
strengthened  by  years  of  indulgence,  will  be  without  its  reward. 

The  author  has  examined  some  pamphlets  issued  by  adver- 
tising specialists  in  the  treatment  of  sexual  disorders,  men 
whose  work  is  carried  on  independently  of  the  faculty  of  medi- 
cine. It  is  undeniable  that  there  is  a  certain  element  of  truth 
in  their  presentation  of  the  evil  efi'ects  of  sexual  excess ;  per- 
haps also  to  a  less  extent  in  their  contention  that  the  qualified 
practitioner  is  not  always  competent  or  willing  to  undertake  the 
careful  investigation  of  cases  of  sexual  weakness,  involving,  or 
seeming  to  involve,  nervous  trouble.  Not  every  physician 
strives  to  act  up  to  the  ideals  of  his  profession  as  regards  in- 
dustry and  sympathy,  and  occasionally,  no  doubt,  a  nervous 
sufferer  is  driven  to  consult  the  specialist  "professor,"  whose 
advertisement  promises  close  attention,  on  account  of  the  quali- 


1  Cp.  Stanley  Hall,  Adolescence,  vol.  i,  p.  464 :  "God  and  Nature 
are  benign,  and  recuperative  agencies,  in  these  years  so  supercharged 
with  vitality,  in  cases  that  seem  desperate,  often  act  cito,  ccrtc,  et 
jucunde."  * 


64  THE    BATTLE    OF   CHASTITY. 

fied  physician's  lack  of  interest,  and  failure  adequately  to  con- 
sider the  case  submitted  to  him. 

Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  just  as  in  theological  or 
ethical  thought  and  study  fresh  impulses  of  great  value  may 
come  from  beyond  the  ranks  of  the  clergy,  the  qualified  and 
recognized  exponents  of  those  subjects,  so  the  crude  and  inade- 
quate efforts  of  amateur  physicians — supposing  them  to  be,  as 
is  probably  sometimes  the  case,  well-meaning  men — may  not  do 
altogether  a  disservice  to  humanity,  and  may  stimulate  the 
regular  students  of  medicine  to  further  activity  in  this  distaste- 
ful branch  of  their  subject,  the  nosology  and  treatment  of  dis- 
eases of  the  genital  organs.  Medicine  is  a  wide  field,  and  there 
is  a  certain  need  of  specialization  on  particular  portions  of  it. 
While  the  public  does  not  need  self-constituted  specialists, 
whose  qualifications  are  unrecognized  by  experts,  it  would  no 
doubt  be  an  advantage  if  qualified  physicians  specially  trained 
to  investigate  and  treat  this  class  of  nervous  disorders  were 
more  accessible. ^  A  warning  against  quackery,  a  mere  vague 
assurance  that  "nothing  much  is  the  matter,"  does  not  always 
meet  the  case  of  a  patient  suffering  from  neurosis  with  well- 
defined  physical  symptoms. 

Yet  in  what  has  been  said  we  have  put  the  best  construc- 
tion on  the  work  of  the  quack  doctor.  The  aforesaid  pamph- 
lets, doubtless  from  an  interested  motive,  view  the  physical 
troubles  of  which  they  treat  in  a  distorted  perspective.  They 
are  not  to  be  considered  as  giving  an  accurate  general  state- 
ment, or  as  conducing  to  a  proper  understanding  of  the  case 
in  regard  to  sexual  and  nervous  debility.  Many  causes  may 
operate  to  produce  a  nervous  condition  which  the  sufferer  mor- 
bidly attributes  to  the  one  cause,  former  misuse  of  the  sexual 
function. 


-  Neisser  (Senator  and  Kaminer,  Health  and  Disease  in  Relation 
to  Marriage,  p.  507)  goes  some  way  toward  the  position  taken  up  in 
the  text,  by  his  admission,  given  with  some  reluctance  and  with  quali- 
fications, that  there  does  exist  a  need  of  specialist  practitioners,  in 
regard  at  least  of  venereal  diseases. 


THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY.  65 

Although  this  is  not  strictly  speaking  a  medical  work,  it  will  not 
be  out  of  place  to  regard  a  little  more  nearly,  by  the  light  of  some 
recent  medical  or  medically  informed  opinions,  the  ordinary  fears  of 
young  men  in  this  connection.  A  good  many  acquire  a  habit  of 
nervously  examining  their  urine.  A  normal  healthy  man  who  has  out- 
lived this  stage  thus  describes  it :  "I  began'  to  study  my  urine  with 
great  alarm,  and  found  plenty  of  marks  of  disease ;  there  were  reddish 
and  whitish  settlings,  lack  of  color  and  overcolor,  strong  smell  and  no 
smell ;  it  was  too  clear,  too  thick,  too  copious,  too  scanty,  or,  worst  of 
all,,  had  an  irridescent  scum,  etc."2a  The  white  mucus  of  the  bladder 
observable  in  the  urine  often  causes  great  and  groundless  fears  ;2b 
as  does  also  slight  varicocele  of  the  epididymis,  a  condition  of  little 
or  no  significance,  and  especially  common  on  the  left  side.^c  It  would 
seem  that  varicocele  is  a  fit  subject  for  medical  intervention  only 
when  extensively  developed.^d 

Such  symptoms,  as  also  frequency  of  nocturnal  pollutions — a 
matter  which  will  engage  our  separate  attention — and  the  escape  of 
small  quantities  of  prostatic  secretion,  derive  their  depressing  influence 
from  the  anxiety  which  in  an  inexperienced  mind  centers  round  two 
chief  points,  the  fear  of  impotence  and  the  fear  of  coming  insanity. 
The  latter  fear,  the  worst  of  the  two,  is  groundless  in  this  connection. 
The  medical  opinion  of  twenty-five  years  ago  wavered  very  much  in 
regard  to  recognizing  a  specific  type  of  insanity  due  to  masturbation ; 
and  that  of  today  denies  its  existence  more  and  more  decidedly.^e  And 
as  to  impotence,  so  far  as  it  is  a  consequence  of  abandoned  masturba- 
tion,— continued  masturbation  tends,  though  apparently  with  uncer- 
tainty and  as  it  were  reluctance,  especially  in  respect  of  the  male 
organism,  to  confirm  it^f, — and  does  not  depend  on  congenital  defects 
of  the  nervous  system,  it  responds  to  curative  treatment,  and  is  indeed 
capable  of  amelioration  through  natural  processes  alone. 


2a  Stanley  Hall,  Adolescence,  vol.  i,  p.  452. 

2b  Id.,  p.  460. 

2°  Cp.  Chetwood,  Essentials  of  Genito-urinary  Diseases,  pp.  170flf. 

2<J  Chetwood,  op.  cit.;  Senator  and  Kaminer,  Health  and  Disease 
in  Relation  to  Marriage,  vol.  i,  p.  358  (art.  by  von  Leyden  and  Wolff)  ; 
vol.  ii,  pp.  717f.  (Posner). 

2eBloch,  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time,  p.  424;  Stanley  Hall,  Adoles- 
cence, vol.  i,  pp.  445ff. ;  Ellis  and  Moll,  Handbuch  der  Sexalwissen- 
schaften,  pp.  620ff. ;  Ellis,  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex,  vol.  i 
(ed.  3),  pp.  248ff.;  S.  Ribbing,  L'Hygiene  sexuelle,  pp.  162f. 

2f  Bloch,  op.  cit.,  p.  425. 


66  THE    BATTLE   OF   CHASTITY. 

No  man  whose  sexual  nature  has  received  damage  should 
despair  of  restoration,  or  relax  his  efforts  to  that  end.  Faith 
shows  us  that  such  restoration  is  possible  in  the  moral  and 
spiritual  region ;  and  even  as  regards  physical  detriment, 
modern  science  reveals  enlarged  possibilities  of  restoration. 
Recent  scientific  researches  in  the  mysterious  region  of  spirit- 
ual activities  and  developments  make  it  probable  that  definite 
self-suggestion  may  profitably  be  employed,  as  an  adjunct  to 
physical  remedies,  in  such  cases  of  nervous  depression  as  are 
here  referred  to.  The  subject  should  continually,  particularly 
before  normal  sleep,^  suggest  to  himself  the  cure  of  the  physi- 
cal as  well  as  the  moral  aspects  of  his  morbid  condition.  The 
general  theory  of  self-suggestion  based  on  faith  in  spiritual  law 
is  set  forth  in  one  of  the  most  luminous  of  recent  books, 
F.  Myers'  Human  Personality.  Some  of  the  methods  adopted  by 
those  who  would  make  a  trial  of  the  efficacy  of  self-suggestion 
— such  methods,  for  example,  as  the  use  of  charms — may  be 
open  to  objection  from  the  monotheistic  point  of  view  incul- 
cated by  Christianity,  as  militating  against  an  immediate  and 
constant  communion  of  the  soul  with  God."*  But  assuredly 
such  a  science  of  spiritual  medicine  should  in  the  main  be 
assumed  as  part  of  the  immeasurable  grace  Christianity  con- 
tains, the  application  to  the  woes  and  weaknesses  of  the  crea- 
ture of  the  healing  resources  of  the  Infinite  Spirit. 

When  past  unchastity  is  realized  as  an  evil,  and  its  effects 
felt  as  a  present  danger,  the  efl'ort  to  turn  from  it,  combined 
with  the  general  strain  of  life,  is  almost  sure  to  be  accompanied 
by  various  symptoms  of  distress.  And  although  in  the  merciful 
Divine  economy  healing  forces  are  set  to  work  to  counteract 
this  distress,  it  may  be  more  or  less  acutely  felt  during  a  long 
period.  And  yet  the  physical  and  mental  distress  does  not  indi- 
cate such  exceeding  disaster  as  may  be  anticipated.  It  does 
not  in  reality  foreshadow  the  ruin  of  the  life,  the  breakdown 


3  Cp.  Forel,  op.  cit.,  p.  497. 

4  Cp.  Gaster,  art.  Charms,  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Eth.,  vol.  iii. 
p.  452a. 


THE    BATTLE   OF   CHASTITY.  67 

of  all  activity,  or  justify  the  fears  which  the  specialist  pamph- 
lets suggest.  No  natural  buoyancy  is  indeed  proof  against  the 
gloomy  depression  occasioned  by  such  a  disordered  physical 
condition,  but  at  this  point,  by  the  appeal  of  the  circumstances 
to  the  soul,  is  felt  the  power  of  personal  trust  in  God,  and  of 
courageous  resolution  based  upon  that  trust.  The  mercies  of 
God  through  Christ  are  not  confined  to  the  spiritual  region ; 
they  touch  continually  and  relieve  the  pains  of  the  physical. 

In  many  lives  such  suffering  has  no  doubt  eventually 
proved  a  moral  discipline  of  immense  value.  The  prayer  often 
breathed — and  with  what  a  special  intensity  in  this  connec- 
tion— that  God  may  turn  away  justly  deserved  evils,  finds  its 
answer,  not  perhaps  in  the  speedy  or  complete  relief  of  fear 
and  depression,  but  in  the  eventual  consciousness  that  the 
direst  anticipations  of- ruin  have  been  unfulfilled,  and  that  the 
possibility  which  alone  makes  life  acceptable  remains — the 
possibility  of  accomplishing  some  work  of  real  and  permanent 
value.  The  burden  of  some  kind  of  ill-health  pressing  on  the  life 
for  long  years  as  the  penalty  of  ignorant  or  willful  impurity 
will  be  the  more  easily  and  cheerfully  borne  if  in  the  midst 
of  nervous  and  hypochondriac  depression  there  rises  up  like 
light  in  a  dark  place  the  consciousness  that  the  worst  result  of 
all — a  life  wholly  wasted  and  abortive — has  been  averted.^ 

At  this  point,  with  a  view  to  developing  his  argument,  the 
author  ventures  to  make  an  extract  from  another  composition 
of  his  own. 

"Jacob's  victory  in  the  conflict  (at  Peniel,  see  Gen.  32 :  24") 
was  complete.  He  had  wrestled  with  God — the  rare  Hebrew 
word  used  (abhaq)  graphically  depicts  the  intensity  of  the 
struggle ;  he  had  passed  the  crisis ;  he  had  outlasted  the  agony, 
and  had  obtained  the  blessing  which  he  sought,  the  blessing 
which  crowned  him  with  never-dying  honor— the  certainty, 
namely,  that  his  life  was  not  to  end  in  failure.    A  great  purpose 


5  Gemelli    (o{y.  cit.,  p.   191)    makes  some  excellent  remarks  of  the 
same  tenor. 


68  THE    BATTLE   OF    CHASTITY. 

was  to  be  brought  to  completion  in  the  Divine  counsels,  and 
Jacob  was  not  to  be  cast  away  from  his  share  as  an  instrument 
in  that  work. 

"Yet  he  always  bore  about  with  him  thereafter  a  memento 
of  the  struggle,  something  that  humiliated  him,  something 
that  reminded  him  of  the  sinful  past  which  had  rendered  such 
a  struggle  necessary.  He  had  striven  with  God,  that  God  might 
avert  from  him  the  consequences  of  his  sins ;  and  they  zvere 
averted  in  so  far  that  they  could  not  mar  the  real  usefulness 
and  fruitfulness  of  his  life;  but  in  the  heavy  blow  which  God 
struck  him  before  the  wrestle  ended,  we  see  the  infliction  of 
some  temporal  chastisement,  which  should  prevent  the  past 
being  forgotten. 

"In  other  lives  there  is  often  something  that  corresponds 
to  this  mysterious  struggle  with  God  in  the  darkness,  by  the 
rugged  cliffs  of  the  Jabbok.  When  we  have  lived  long  enough 
in  the  world  to  realize  the  seriousness  of  life,  we  understand 
that  we  have  a  work  to  do,  a  part  to  play  in  the  evolution  of 
truth,  justice  and  right  in  the  universe.  .  .  .  It  is  our  sin- 
fulness that  hinders  the  working  out  of  this  purpose.  We  feel 
our  mistakes,  follies,  willfulness  coming  back  upon  us  in  a 
thousand  ways ;  their  consequences  hinder  our  development  and 
the  progress  of  our  work.  How  many  can  say,  'Ah !  if  only 
I  had  known,  or  if  only  I  had  been  wiser  in  the  past;  if  I  had 
not  squandered  my  powers  and  neglected  my  opportunities  and 
wasted  my  time  and  substance,  how  much  more  influence  or 
how  much  more  vigor  or  what  a  much  better  position  I  should 
have  now?'  Sometimes  it  is  remissness  and  indolence  in  busi- 
ness or  sheer  frivolous  idleness  which  spoil  a  man's  prospects ; 
sometimes  it  is  impurity  or  intemperance  which  enfeebles  his 
physical  vigor ;  ...  it  may  be  one  thing  or  it  may  be 
another ;  but  a  time  comes,  perhaps,  when  his  heart  turns  sick 
with  the  thought  of  the  miserable  folly  of  it  all.  He  sees  the 
sins  in  his  past  life,  and  now  he  dreads,  and  longs  by  every 
possible  means  to  avert,  their  consequences. 


THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY.  69 

"The  darkness  closes  in.  An  adversary  of  ill-health,  or  of 
ill-fame,  or  of  poverty,  meets  him  as  he  stands  on  the  brink 
of  the  promise  of  his  life,  as  he  enters  into  what  ought  to  be 
its  best  and  most  fruitful  years.  He  must  wrestle  in  darkness, 
in  fear,  in  loneliness  with  the  consequences  of  his  sin.  He 
must  struggle  with  ill-health  or  with  dishonor  before  he  can 
go  farther,  before  he  can  accomplish  anything  of  value. 

"If  he  struggles  with  a  heart  full  of  faith  and  of  uncon- 
querable hope  in  God,  the  light  must  strike  oni  him  at  last. 
He  finds  the  knowledge  that  the  adversary  with  whom  he  has 
battled  has  been  God  Himself,  God  expressing  His  will  in  the 
form  of  a  temporal  visitation,  and  what  seemed  the  wrestler's 
grip  was  in  reality  the  embrace  of  the  Divine  Love. 

"Thus  by  trusting  the  Love  of  God,  by  wrestling  with  Him 
in  prayer,  in  order,  as  it  were,  to  compel  Him  to  show  mercy, 
men  may  so  far  avert  the  consequences  of  sin,  as  that  these 
consequences  shall  not  mar  the  real  purpose  of  their  lives. 

"But  if  Jacob,  or  if  anyone  else,  prevails  with  God  to  avert 
the  ruin  of  his  life  and  his  life's  work — the  dire  calamity  which 
he  dreads  as  the  main  consequence  of  his  former  sins,  still 
those  sins  leave  their  memorial  and  their  mark  upon  him.  God 
strikes  him  one  blow,  the  effect  of  which  lasts  throughout  his 
lifetime,  and  he  goes  halting  to  the  end  of  his  days. 

"And  how  many  penitent  Christians  there  are  who,  though 
they  are  blessedly  conscious  of  the  forgiveness  of  their  sins,  yet 
feel  and  know  that  they  must  carry  about  all  through  their  lives 
a  burden,  a  cross,  imposed  on  them  as  a  reminder  of  the  sinful 
past.  Perhaps  it  is  a  bodily  infirmity  .  .  .  whatever  it  may 
be,  it  is  no  longer  any  source  of  despondency,  or  of  undue 
sadness.  Its  power  to  injure  is  restrained;  it  can  but  make 
a  man  go  halting  through  life,  not  stop  his  progress  altogether. 
Perhaps,  as  his  life's  work  arrives  nearer  to  its  full  accom- 
plishment, even  this  remaining  burden  will  be  largely  lightened. 
He  will  become  less  conscious  of  being  crippled  as  the  years 
move  on.     .     .     ." 

Not  merely,  however,  the  pressure  of  a  young  man's  past, 


70  THE    BATTLE   OF    CHASTITY. 

with  its  corrupt  memories  and  its  legacy  of  weakness,  but  also 
the  continuous,  exhausting  struggle  with  incontinence,  must 
at  this  point  be  considered. 

"But  even  now  there  live  in  my  memory  the  images  of 
such  things,  which  my  habit  of  mind  hath  planted  there. 
When,  indeed,  they  meet  me  in  waking  hours  they  are  void  of 
power;  but  in  sleep  they  avail  not  merely  to  arouse  pleasure 
in  me,  but  to  gain  the  consent  of  my  will."  (St.  Aug.  Conf. 
X,41.) 

Such  a  sentence,  taken  from  the  autobiography  of  a  man 
of  quite  extraordinary  gifts  of  intellect  and  spirit,  gives  us  a 
glimpse — the  significance  of  which  we  shall  fully  appreciate — 
of  the  indescribably  fierce  conflict  secretly  kindled  in  the 
breasts  of  many  by  carnal  desire.  If  a  man  of  mature  age,  and 
of  spirituality  acknowledged  on  all  sides,  admits  such  facts  as 
regards  himself,®  what  inference  are  we  to  draw  in  respect  of 
the  ordinary  young  man  in  the  street?  Shall  we  wonder  if 
to  him  the  strain  of  continence  becomes  at  times  intolerable; 
and  that  too,  not  so  much  from  willful  depravity  on  his  own 
part  as  from  the  inevitable  fact  that  sexual  desire  has  a  claim 
upon  human  nature,  which  it  enforces,  imperious  and  importu- 
nate,  amid  waking  thoughts,   in   sleeping  visions   and   in   the 


"  *5  I  cannot   forbear  to  cite  in  this  connection  the  plaintive  prayer 
of  a  modern  saint: — 

"O  Holy  Lord,  Who  with  the  Children  Three 
Didst  walk  the  piercing  flame, 
Help,  in  those  trial-hours,  which,  save  to  Thee 
I  dare  not  name ; 

Nor  let  these  quivering  eyes  and  sickening  heart 
Crumble  to  dust  beneath  the  Tempter's  dart. 

"Thou,  Who  didst  once  Thy  life  from  Mary's  breast 
Renew  from  day  to  day, 
O  might  her  smile,  severely  sweet,  but  rest 
On  this   frail  clay  1 

Till  I  am  Thine  with  my  whole  soul,  and  fear. 
Not    feel   a   secret   joy,   that   Hell   is   near." 

— Newman,  J'erses  on   Various  Occasions. 


THE    BATTLE   OF   CHASTITY.  71 

mysterious  hours  when  sleep  and  wakefulness  wonderfully 
mingled  envelop  the  reason  and  the  will  in  a  cloud  of  help- 
lessness? The  physical  control  of  the  sexual  function  may  be 
imperfect,  even  when  the  moral  will  is  vigorously  repudiating 
the  suggestion  of  unchastityJ 

Quackery  is,  as  we  have  seen,  at  its  best  a  feeble  and  may 
well  be  a  treacherous  ally  in  the  battle  for  health  and  purity 
in  the  sex  life;  but  genuine  medicine,  if  it  cannot  promise  full 
and  final  relief,^  often  affords  prompt  and  valuable  aid.  The 
reduction  of  persistent  sexual  excitement  is  one  of  the  philan- 
thropic aims  of  medicine ;  and  this  problem  is  approached  along 
more  than  one  line,  viz.,  treatment  by  drugs,  general  hygiene, 
and  suggestion  or  psychotherapy.  Gemelli  gives  succinct  up- 
to-date  information  on  sedative  drugs  in  connection  with  sex- 
uality,^ and  sums  up  in  favor  of  bromides  and  adaline. 

He  sets  forth,  further,  the  effects  of  general  hygiene,  and 
in  particular  of  physical  exercise  and  training,  on  the  sex  life. 
These  activities  balance  to  some  extent  the  erotic  element  in 
consciousness.  A  uniformly  sedative  effect  cannot  be  claimed 
for  them,  for,  as  Dr.  Helene  Stocker  points  out,i*^  in  some 
cases  a  stimulation  of  the  sexual  nature  coincides,  as  is  to  be 
expected,  with  the  general  invigoration  of  the  organism.  But 
the  balance  of  considerations  is  undoubtedly  in  favor  of  regard- 
ing reasonably  vigorous  exercise,  with  its  tendency  to  promote 
digestion,  circulation,  and  especially  sleep,ii  as  a  factor  in  the 
alleviation  of  sexual  strain. 


''  Cp.  Gemelli,  op.  cit.,  pp.  139ff. ;  Hirschfeld,  Die  Honiosexualitat, 
p.  437. 

8  Cp.  Moll's  observation,  quoted  by  Gemelli,  op.  cit.,  p.  142f . : 
"Sexual  inclinations  are  not  combated  by  acids  or  aloes;  we  must 
oppose  to  them  an  element  of  the  same  psychic  nature  as  their  own, — 
the  strengthening  of  the  will  is  more  efificacious  than  other  means." 

9  Op  cit.,  vol.  i,  ch.  V,  3. 

10  Die  Neue  Generation,  Jahrg.  8,  Heft  7,  p.  Z72. 

11  The  tendency  of  sexual  tension  to  induce  insomnia  is  well 
known  (Freud,  Drei  Abhandlungen,  p.  40).  The  counteraction  of 
healthy  physical  fatigue  may  prove  effective. 


72  THE    BATTLE   OF    CHASTITY. 

Sexuality  in  a  state  of  celibacy  has  subtle  and  various 
effects  upon  the  mind.  To  speak  vaguely  of  "impure  thoughts" 
as  if  they  all  belonged  ethically  to  one  category,  would  be  mis- 
leading. All  healthy  and  normally  constituted  persons  are 
bound  to  experience  some  motions  of  the  sexual  appetite  before 
marriage,  not  merely  on  the  emotional  side — with  which  we 
shall  deal  later — but  on  the  physical.  As  long  as  the  subject 
of  these  experiences  construes  them  aright  as  promptings  not 
to  promiscuity  or  any  illicit  sex  relation,  but  to  marriage ;  as 
long  as,  in  consequence  of  this  right  construction,  he  tries  to 
restrain  and  discipline  himself  to  the  point  of  inhibiting  such 
promptings  till  such  time  as  they  can  be  lawfully  gratified, 
they  can  hardly  be  stigmatized  as  "impure"  thoughts.  But 
these  imaginations,  when  entertained  in  a  mind  governed  by 
an  irreligious  and  unprincipled  will,  may  either  prove  a  stimu- 
lus to  sexual  vice,  or  develop  into  what  has  been  described  as 
"mental  masturbation,"  a  state  in  which  a  continual  excitement 
is  maintained  in  the  sexual  system,  without  actual  indulgence, 
with  the  result  that  besides  moral  defilement  physical  detri- 
ment ensues,  owing  to  the  excessive  and  continuous  tension  of 
the  tissues,  without  recourse  being  had  to  the  relief  afforded 
by  coitus.  1- 

Another  class  of  sexual  emotions  is  that  found  in  neurotic 
persons,  especially  those  who,  after  abajidoning  habits  of  early 
masturbation,  experience  some  degree  of  nervous  and  sexual 
disturbance,  connected  probably  with  an  enlarged  and  sensi- 
tive prostate.  1^  In  a  repentant  and  humbled  mind  the  con- 
tinued presence  of  these  nervous  freaks  of  the  imagination 
causes  great  distress.  They  constitute  chastisement  rather  than 
temptation,  inasmuch  as  the  soul  repudiates  and  combats  them, 
and  they  cannot  be  placed  in  the  same  ethical  category  as  the 
consciously  entertained  impure  thoughts  to  which  reference  has 
just  been  made.    With  an  amelioration  of  the  pathological  con- 


12  Cp.  Forster,  op.  cit.,  p.  121. 

13  Forel,  op.  cit.,  pp.  230f. 


THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY.  73 

ditions  of  the  physical  organism  the  distressful  mental  symp- 
toms will  be  correspondingly  reduced.  While  they  last  the 
subject  of  them  must  endeavor  to  see  in  them  a  call  to  the 
exercise  of  a  stronger  faith  in  the  ultimate  issue  of  that  moral 
process  by  which,  in  a  mind  ruled  by  a  converted  will,  every 
thought  (ttSv  vorj/xa^  every  motion  of  the  mind)  is  brought 
into  captivity  to  the  obedience  of  Christ. ^"^ 

How  does  the  Lambeth  Conference  of  Bishops,  to  whom 
we  might  fairly  look  for  some  measure  of  penetrating  insight, 
and  of  wise  and  kindly  guidance,  deal  with  such  cases,  the 
number  of  which  is  probably  very  large  ?  Their  lordships  give 
to  the  world  the  broad  assertion : 

"A  life  of  chastity  for  the  unmarried  is  not  only  possible, 
but  is  commanded  by  God.''  They  offer  no  qualifying  admis- 
sion, in  the  spirit  of  St.  Paul.i"'  that  for  some  (or  shall  we  say 
for  the  many?),  owing  tp  the  power  of  the  sexual  instinct, 
marriage  is  a  physical  and  moral  necessity. 

A  life  of  chastity  possible  for  tli£  unmarried!  A  mere 
categorical  assertion  of  this  kind  does  little  service  to  the  cause 
of  purity,  and  one  could  almost  comment  with  some  vehemence 
on  the  lack  of  sympathy  displayed.!'^  No  doubt  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  Christian  Church  to  uphold  the  ideal  possibility  of 
chastity  in  single  life;  but  should  not  men  who  have  special 
opportunities  of  studying  how  to  render  fruitful  in  their  practi- 
cal application  to  human  life  the  lines  of  ethical  thought 
developed  in  the  Bible,  recognize  (as  St.  Paul  does)  the 
frequent  practical  impossibility?     Too  often  we  have  listened 


i^n  Cor.  10:5. 

15  I  Cor.  7  :  9. 

1^  There  is  onl}^  too  much  truth  in  Professor  Garlitt's  remark, 
"The  champions  of  the  strictest  sexual  prohibitions  are  often  of  the 
age  when  a  man's  thoughts  are  no  longer  troubled  by  sensuality  (Die 
Neue  Gen.,  Jahrg.  8.  Heft  7,  p.  367).  So  Professors  Geddes  and 
Thomson  observe :  "The  pity  is  that  we  so  largely  forget  the  troubles 
of  adolescence  as  we  outgrow  it,  and  so  fail  of  sympathy  when  our 
opportunity  to  our  juniors  comes"   (Problems  of  Sex,  p.  39). 


74  THE   BATTLE   OF   CHASTITY. 

in  vain,  in  the  voice  of  the  assembled  Church,  for  the  tone  of 
deep  fraternal  sympathy,  for  the  kind  word  of  encouragement 
to  the  young  unmarried  man  who,  in  his  hard  circumstances, 
accepts  the  obligation  to  sexual  abstinence,  but  whose  nerve- 
power  is  strained  to  the  uttermost  beneath  its  weight ;  who 
dreads  the  overhanging  cloud  of  insanity,  as  he  morbidly 
broods  over  his  boyhood's  troubles,  and  passing  through  the 
streets,  where  prostitutes  pace  the  pavement  at  dusk,  thinks, 
in  his  lonely,  miscalculating  ignorance,  to  mend  the  error  made 
in  solitude  by  a  desperate,  debasing  venture  in  fornication. 

Many  writers  and  speakers  who  touch  this  point,  and  who 
declaim  against  the  common  sophism  that  prostitution  is  a 
necessity,  ignore  the  real  point  in  question  which  this  sophism 
partly  conceals. 

One  may  not  assent  to  the  doctrine  that  prostitution  is  a 
necessity,  but  one  must  admit  that  the  broad  question,  Is 
sexual  satisfaction  a  necessity?  may  legitimately  be  asked  by 
any  man  in  respect  to  himself,  and  it  is  a  question  which  must 
at  least  help  greatly  in  forming  his  choice  between  remaining 
celibate  and  getting  married. 

The  proposition  that  the  moderate  gratification  of  the  sex- 
ual instinct  is  necessary  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  for  the 
health  of  the  physical  organism  is  usually  affirmed  or  denied 
under  the  influence  of  or  in  revolt  from  ethical  considerations. 
These,  it  is  true,  have  to  be  taken  account  of  in  applying  the 
abstract  truth,  when  that  has  been  ascertained,  to  concrete 
cases;  for  the  real  issue  is  extremely  broad,  comprising  not 
merely  the  physical  life,  but  what  is  so  closely  bound  up  with 
it,  the  moral  and  spiritual  life  of  man.  However,  the  starting 
point  of  the  inquiry  must  be  the  relation  which,  on  the  one 
hand  continence,  and  on  the  other  moderate  gratification,  have 
to  the  physical  health. 

This  question  is  frequently  approached  in  pamphlets  and 
booklets  intended  for  popular  circulation  with  a  view  to  puri- 
fying social  morality.  But  the  discussion  is  vitiated  from  a 
scientific  point  of  view  by  the  premature  introduction  of  such 


THE    BATTLE    OF   CHASTITY.  75 

ethical  considerations. ^^  Something  has  even  to  be  discounted 
from  the  value  of  the  utterances  of  eminent  medical  men  ad- 
duced for  the  purpose  of  disproving  any  kind  of  necessity  for 
sexual  gratification,  for  these  utterances  have  usually  reference 
to  illicit  gratification,  i.e.,  they  contain  an  appeal  to  ethics. 

The  contribution  of  anthropology  to  the  study  of  the  physi- 
ological aspects  of  continence  is  of  uncertain  value.  A  large 
body  of  primitive  ideas  does,  it  is  true,  emphasize  the  physical 
superiority  of  continence,!^  but  these  ideas  have  arisen  in  an 
atmosphere  of  superstition,  and  are  uninformed  by  physiolog- 
ical knowledge. 

As  an  instance  of  the  confusion  of  thought,  even  in  med- 
ical works,  upon  the  physiological  aspect  of  celibacy,  we  may 
cite  the  opinion  of  Dr.  Guernsey  in  regard  to  the  hygienic 
necessity  of  regular  sexual  intercourse  in  marriage:  "It  is  in 
the  very  nature  of  the  male  to  seek  his  mate;  it  is  an  inborn 
principle  for  him  to  do  so,  and  his  health,  even  his  life,  cer- 
tainly his  moral  life,  often  depend  upon  an  orderly  and  lawful 
indulgence  of  what  this  inherent  principle  demands. "^^  Yet 
the  same  writer,  having  illicit  intercourse  in  mind,  strongly 
affirms,  not  merely  the  possibility,  but  the  beneficial  nature  of 
celibacy,  and  appears  to  regard  any  confession  on  a  patient's 
part  that  celibacy  involves  a  physical  and  moral  strain  as  an 
indication  of  an  immoral  temper  (p.  53ff.).  In  Dr.  Beale's 
work.  Our  Morality,  the  same  confusion  appears,  the  author 
asserting  on  the  one  hand  (p.  53)  that  "marriage  is,  physio- 
logically speaking,  the  best  state  for  most  men,  and,  upon  the 
whole,    certainly    ofifers    the    best    prospect    of    acquiring   the 


1'^  Gemelli's  contribution  to  the  discussion  (op.  cit.,  ch.  iii,  1)  well 
exemplifies  this  fact.  Its  scientific  value  is  impaired  by  the  polemical 
spirit  which  determines  its  choice  of  citations  and  inspires  its  criti- 
cisms. Forster's  remark  (Sexualethik  und  Sexualpadagogik,  p.  195) 
that  doctors,  if  they  rightly  conceive  of  their  profession,  must  be 
priests  (i.e.,  of  traditional  ethical  religion),  is  assuredly  misleading. 
Medical  science,  as  such,  is  not  concerned  with  ethics. 

i'^  See  Crawley,  o/>.  cit.,  p.  188ff. 

i!>  Plain  Talks,  p.  93. 


76  THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY. 

healthiest,  and  perhaps  the  highest,  condition  of  mind  and 
body  possible  ;"20  and  on  the  other  hand,  that  "the  yielding  to 
desire  is  no  more  to  be  justified  upon  physiological  or  physical 
than  upon  moral  or  religious  grounds."  The  truth  is  that 
throughout  his  discussion  of  the  question  he  has  other  consid- 
erations in  view  than  purely  physiological  ones.  Indeed,  he 
admits  as  much.  "The  attempt  to  place  marriage  upon  a  merely 
physiological  basis  is,"  he  says,  "not  justified  by  facts."  That 
is  so;  that  is  the  main  position  of  the  present  writer;  never- 
theless, the  unhampered  discussion  of  the  purely  physiological 
question  must  come  first  in  order,  though  not  in  importance, 
in  a  scientific  work  on  sex. 

It  is  frequently  suggested  that  the  activity  of  the  sexual 
organs  may  be  dormant  in  a  state  of  continence,  except  for 
an  occasional  orgasm  in  sleep,- ^  without  detriment  to  the  gen- 
eral health  or  to  the  nerve-power.  It  is  even  urged  further 
that  the  sexual  department  of  continent  adults  is  a  kind  of 
storage  battery  of  vitality.  The  organs  go  on  fulfilling  their 
secretive  functions,  and  it  is  maintained  by  distinguished  medi- 
cal writers — though  there  is  a  lack  of  unanimity  on  the  point — 
that  abstinence  from  sexual  intercourse  cannot  be  reckoned  as 
a  cause  of  impotence,  and  cannot  be  proved  to  diminish  fecun- 
dity. It  must  be  observed,  however,  that  the  notion  of  the 
harmless  dormancy  of  the  sexual  organs  conflicts  with  what  we 
know  of  the  general  relation  of  use  to  health.--     The  physical 


20  In  the  series  of  essays  on  Health  and  Disease  in  Relation  to 
Marriage,  recently  published  from  the  German  by  Messrs.  Rebman, 
while  possible  dangers  in  connection  with  marriage  are  clearly  and 
unflinchingly  enumerated,  it  is  emphasized  that  marriage  is  hygienically 
of  value,  not  only  as  a  defense  of  existing  health,  but  as  a  means  of 
benefiting  or  curing  several  forms  of  ill  health.  Cf>.  Gemelli,  op.  cit., 
p.  88:  "Nowadays  hygienists  declare  that  in  conjugal  intercourse  we 
have  a  truly  physiological  process  in  which  a  woman  gives  back  to  the 
man  a  certain  portion  of  his  own  expended  energy." 

21  See  Additional  Note  F,  on  the  Nocturnal  Pollution. 

22  When  it  is  considered  that  all  the  different  systems,  nervous, 
vascular,  digestive,  and  the  rest,  which  compose  the  body  of  man,  are 


THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY.  JJ 

well-being  of  organs  is  ensured  by  proper  use,  and  when  denied 
that  use  the  organ  craves  for  it  with  an  intensity  which  reacts 
upon  the  whole  organism.  For  example,  the  experiment  has 
been  tried  on  long  expeditions  by  sea  of  feeding  men  with  food 
essences.  It  is  found  that  the  digestive  organs  cry  out  for 
their  normal  functioning  in  such  a  way  as  not  only  to  cause 
an  unnatural  craving  for  harsh  and  gritty  foods,  but  seriously 
to  impair  the  general  health  and  vitality. 

Now  it  is  true  that  the  sex-cells  occupy  a  unique  position 
in  the  organism.  An  early  differentiation  is  made  in  the  in- 
dividual between  the  personal  and  the  germinal  elements,  the 
ontogenetic  and  the  phylogenetic  material ;  in  other  words,  be- 
tween the  body  and  the  sex-cells.  We  must  not,  then,  too 
readily  estimate  the  physical  efifect  of  continence  by  the  help 
of  analogies  derived  from  the  functioning  of  other  organs  of 
the  body.  Yet  we  cannot  reason  fully  as  to  the  results  of  pro- 
longed continence  from  the  bare  fact  that  the  sex-cells  are, 
in  a  sense,  physiologically  isolated  in  the  organism.  Fere,  in 
his  argument  in  favor  of  the  physical  harrhlessness  of  conti- 
nence, maintains  that  the  sexual  organs  belong  as  much  to  the 
species  as  to  the  individual.  Certainly,  if  the  sexual  act  in 
humanity  were  a  reproductive  act  and  nothing  more,  the  organs 
with  which  it  is  performed  would  belong  even  more  truly  to 
the  species  than  to  the  individual;  but  it  has  other  objects  than 
the  sole  one  of  reproduction.  It  is  a  love  act.^-"  Duly  regu- 
lated, it  conduces  to  the  ethical  welfare  of  the  individual  and 
promotes  his  efficiency  as  a  social  unit.     The  act  itself  and  its 


but  specializations  of  a  common  primary  form,  and  still  interact  and 
mutually  affect  each  other,  it  will  be  questioned  whether  physical  an- 
thropology allows  of  the  withdrawal  of  one  of  these  systems,  the 
sexual,  from  the  operation  of  the  law  of  alternate  use  and  rest  to 
which  the  remaining  systems  are  amenable.  (See  Duckworth,  Mor- 
phology and  Anthropology,  pp.  14,  15,  546.) 

23  Q.  Bloch,  The  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time,  pp.  22ff. ;  C.  Gas- 
quoine  Hartley,  The  Truth  about  Woman,  p.  338.  Luther,  and  after 
him  Schleiermacher,  held  the  same  estimate  of  the  act. 


78  THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY. 

surrounding  emotions  stimulate  within  the  organism  the  power- 
ful movements  of  a  vast  psychic  life. 

In  the  light  of  the  analysis  of  the  sexual'  impulse  recently 
made  by  Moll  and  approved  with  modifications  by  Havelock 
Ellis,-'*  the  evolution  of  the  sexual  instinct  may  be  stated  thus : 
In  the  lowest  forms  of  life  the  species  is  propagated  by  fission, 
by  the  liberation  from  the  parent  organism,  when  its  tumescent 
or  swelling  stage  is  complete,  of  other  organisms,  the  parent 
organism  itself  dying,  or  to  speak  more  accurately,  becoming 
transmuted  into  other  organisms.  This  one  procreative  activity 
is  in  later  and  more  highly  developed  forms  of  life,  or  after 
sex  has  appeared  in  the  economy  of  nature,  expanded  into  two 
main  sexual  activities,  the  process  of  detumescence  by  which 
impregnation  is  caused,  and  the  process  of  parturition.  Detu- 
mescence itself  requires  preparatory  processes ;  thus  the  sexual 
instinct  develops  a  subordinate  impulse,  the  impulse  of  con- 
trectation,  or  the  inclination  to  touch  and  fondle  the  object 
of  desire,  leading  up  to  the  required  state  of  tumescence. 
The  primary  cell  already,  i.e.,  before  the  advent  of  sex,  experi- 
ences an  impulse  to  live  a  life  containing  indefinite  potentiali- 
ties of  development  and  expansion,  according  to  the  law  of 
evolution.  This  initial  impulse  is  self-regarding.  It  is  a 
hunger.  In  order  to  fulfill  the  law  of  expansion,  the  individual 
cell  must  acquire  and  assimilate  things  external  to  itself. 
It  becomes  tumescent,  drawing  in  nourishment  from  its 
environment. 

As  we  ascend  the  biological  series,  the  original  impulse  is 
specialized  in  several  directions.  It  becomes  a  desire  to  draw 
breath,  to  imbibe  liquid  nourishment,  to  obtain  food,  and  to 
gratify  the  sexual  longing.  The  necessity  of  bringing  about  a 
state  of  tumescence  or  sexual  excitement  in  both  male  and 
female,  before  the  climax  is  reached  at  which  detumescence, 
the  impregnating  discharge  of  the  pent-up  nervous  energy, 
takes  place,  gives  rise  in  the  higher  parts  of  creation  to  an 


21  Ellis,   Studies,  vol.  iii. 


THE    BATTLE   OF   CHASTITY.  79 

elaborate  though  secondary  series  of  sexual  activities,  and  it 
is  on  the  basis  of  these  that  sexual  love  in  its  highest  develop- 
ment comes  into  being.  Although  these  specialized  instincts 
now  become  ready  to  take  on  altruistic  developments,  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  they  are  primarily  self -regarding.  They 
are  the  basis  of  a  true  self-love.  It  is  true  that  by  virtue  of  the 
catabolic  principle  operating  throughout  nature,  the  sex  instinct 
has  an  aspect  of  sacrifice  as  well  as  of  hunger.  In  the  sex 
process  the  creature,  from  the  lowliest  cell  upward,  gives  as 
well  as  takes.  Indeed,  in  the  vegetable  kingdom,  where  there 
is  not  actual  conjugation,  the  sex  process  on  its  catabolic  side 
loses  the  aspect  of  hunger  and  consists  only  in  the  giving  out 
of  pollen. 

But  in  the  animal  kingdom,  wherever  conjugation  of  the 
male  and  the  female  is  the  rule,  this  specialized  form  of  the 
aforesaid  primary  impulse  does  not  cease,  even  in  its  catabolic 
aspect,  to  be  a  hunger,  i.e.,  to  be  self-regarding.  The  creature's 
impulse  is  to  possess  a  partner,  with  the  object  of  conjugation. 
It  cannot  be  said  that  primarily  there  is  a  conscious  impulse  to 
fecundation,  i.e.,  to  the  result  attached  to  conjugation.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  the  lower  creatures  consciously  associate 
fecundation  with  conjugation;  whether,  in  fact,  they  are  aware 
while  copulating  that  their  act  is  the  means  of  impregnation. 
There  is  some  reason  for  thinking  that  even  in  mankind  a  stage 
of  knowledge  once  existed  in  which  there  was  no  association  of 
the  two  ideas.  Among  the  women  of  the  Arunta  even  now 
pregnancy  is  believed  to  be  the  result  of  the  passage  of  a  spirit 
child  from  the  nearest  oknanikilla  or  totem  center,  into  the 
body  of  a  woman ;  and  this  may  indicate  that  originally  the 
very  relation  of  paternity  was  unknown. ^-'^     The  sex  instinct 


25  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  p.  265 ; 
id.,  Northern  Tribes,  ch.  xiii.  The  same  ignorance  is  found  among 
South  American  Indians.  Some  Orinoco  men  explained  to  a  mis- 
sionary that  their  reason  for  leaving  agriculture  to  their  women  was 
"because  women  know  how  to  produce  children,"  and,  inferentially, 
corn.      (Westermarck,   Origin   and    Development   of   the   Moral    Ideas, 


80  THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY. 

impelled  primitive  men  and  women  to  meet;  but  it  was  only 
by  experience  and  observation  that  they  discovered  that  the 
result  of  the  meeting  was  procreation. 26 

Such  considerations  enforce  the  view  that  the  sexual  act 
is  primarily  a  love  act;  and  that  procreation,  although  to  the 
general  observer  its  most  obvious  and  important,  should  not 
be  regarded  as  its  sole  purpose.  Accordingly,  such  an  initial 
proposition  as  that  laid  down  by  Forel,^'^  as  the  basis  of  a  gen- 
eral consideration  of  the  sex  Hfe,  will  require  some  modification 
of  statement. 

Bloch's  minute  survey  of  the  relations  of  the  sexes 
in  both  ancient  and  modern  times  leads  him  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  sexual  instinct  has  at  least  as  much  importance  for 
the  individual  as  for  the  race ;  and  that  exclusive  attention  to 
the  latter  aspect  of  it  was  the  fundamental  mistake  of  the 
traditional  sex  ethic.^s  The  traditional  view,  has  not  justified 
itself  by  facts ;  and  it  has  not  made  for  purity  of  morals. 

Further,  it  has  been  proved  in  various  ways  that  the  sexual 
instinct  continues  to  exist  in  full  activity,  not  only  in  man,  but 
in  the  lower  animals,  after  the  power  of  procreation  has  been 
taken  away,  and  even  after  the  organs  necessary  to  procreation 
have  been  removed. 

Yet  again,  it  may  be  asked,  does  not  the  existence  of  such 


vol.  i,  p.  637.)  The  late  W.  Robertson  Smith  showed  that  the  word 
for  father  in  Semitic  languages  held  no  implication  of  physical 
paternity.  (Kinship  and  Marriage  in  Early  Arabia,  ed.  1.  pp.  116ff. ; 
ed.  2,  pp.  139ff.)  Primitive  religious  ideas  about  birth  likewise 
testify  to  this  ignorance  of  the  relation  of  physical  paternity  (see  E.  S. 
Hartland,  Primitive  Paternity).  These  ideas  underwent  a  change 
"lorsqu'on  se  rendit  niieux  compte  de  la  necessite  de  I'acte  sexuel." 
(Saintyves,  Les  Vierges  Meres  et  les  Naissances  Miraculeuses,  p.  16.) 

26  Westermarck,  Hist,  of  Hum.  Marriage,  p.  105 ;.  Rosenthal,  Der 
Ursprung  der  Ehe,  in  Die  Neue  Generation,  Jahrg.  5,  p.  141. 

-''  Forel,  Die  sexuelle  Frage,  p.  3,  Beim  Menschen,  wie  bei 
jedem  Lebewesen,  ist  der  immanente  Zweck  einer  jeden  sexuellen 
Funktion,  somit  auch  der  sexuellen  Liebe,  die  Fortpflanzung  der  Art. 

28  Die   Prostitution,   Bd.  i,  p.  589. 


THE    BATTLE   OF    CHASTITY.  81 

a  strange  phenomenon  as  congenital  sexual  inversion,  with  its 
intense  emotions — where  the  reproductive  instinct  must  neces- 
sarily be  inactive — indicate  that  coitus  is  not  merely  a  repro- 
ductive act,  but  that  in  the  economy  of  nature  it  serves  other 
ends?  In  our  discussion  of  the  physical  use  of  marriage  in 
Chapter  IX,  this  point  will  be  further  proved. 

Even  if  the  analogy  between  the  denial  of  functioning  to 
the  sexual  organs  and  the  similar  denial  to  the  digestive  organs 
has  to  be  criticised  by  the  light  of  the  scientific  dogma  of 
the  differentiation  of  the  sex-cells  in  the  body,  none  the  less 
it  retains  a  large  amount  of  truth,  for  the  "dormancy"  of  the 
sexual  organs  in  continence  is  in  the  experience  of  myriads 
an  illusive  theory.  Practically  they  are  far  from  being  dor- 
mant ;  on  the  contrary,  they  become  highly  irritable  from  the 
overfrequent  activity  of  sexual  desire,  and  in  a  person  of  low 
principle,  unnatural  or  illicit  gratification  ensues, ^9  while  in- 
somnia, depression,  and  other  neuropathic  conditions  may 
develop  in  a  high-minded  man  who,  in  spite  of  all,  struggles  to 
be  continent.  The  vitality  gathered  up  by  that  storage  battery, 
the  continent  sexual  department,  is  heavily  drawn  upon  by  the 
expenditure  of  nerve-force  required  for  the  conflict  with 
temptation. 

It  is  true  that  sexual  intercourse  is  a  catabolic  act,  involv- 
ing an  expenditure  of  energy.  But  in  humanity  the  catabolism 
has  undergone  modifications.  The  activity  implied  in  the 
process  culminating  in  the  orgasm  is  followed  by  reactionary 
symptoms ;  but  although  in  morbid  states  pathological  symp- 
toms of  a  more  or  less  alarming  character  may  appear, ^*^  the 


29  Havelock  Ellis  and  others  have  noted  the  recourse  had  to  mas- 
turbation, as  being  a  nervous  sedative,  by  persons  greatly  distressed 
with  sexual  desire.  This  cannot  be  regarded  favorably  from  the 
point  of  view  of  Christian  ethics,  as  I  have  shown  elsewhere  in  this 
volume,  but  it  illustrates  the  extent  of  the  physical  strain  caused  in 
some  cases  by  the  effort  to  observe  continence. 

20  Havelock  Ellis,  Die  Psychologie  des  normalen  Geschlecht- 
striebes    (Handbuch   der  Sexualwissenschaften,  p.   181). 


82  THE    BATTLE   OF    CHASTITY. 

normal  reaction  is  sedative,  and  involves  a  recuperation  of  the 
nervous  energy  expended  in  the  act,  whereas  in  certain  cases 
of  prolonged  continence  the  nervous  expenditure  due  to  the 
effort  of  self-control  does  not,  indeed,  proceed  by  so  obvious 
a  method  as  the  ejaculation;  of  semen,  but  is  none  the  less 
actual,  and  does  not  bring  about  its  own  compensation  by  a 
natural  sedative  reaction.  It  is,  therefore,  wrong  to  argue 
generally  from  the  catabolism  of  the  act  to  a  wholesale  physio- 
logical condemnation  of  it — such  a  condemnation  as  is  implied 
in  the  cynical  remark  of  Clinias,  quoted  by  F'ere  with  some 
approval,  that  the  best  time  for  a  man  to  have  connection  with 
his  wife  is  when  he  wishes  to  injure  himself,  i.e.,  that  such 
connection  always  inflicts  more  or  less  of  injury  on  the  male. 

The  physiological  doctrine  of  excitant  secretions  or  hoi- 
mones  likewise  suggests  the  possibility  of  strain  accruing  to 
the  organism  from  ungratified  sexual  desire.  "In  adolescence 
the  promptings  of  sex  impulses  make  themselves  normally  and 
often  formidably  assertive.  In  various  ways — for  instance,  by 
the  liberation  of  chemical  excitants  (the  'hormones'  of  recent 
physiology)  which  pass  from  the  essential  reproductive  organs 
and  saturate  through  and  through  body  and  brain — the  whole 
being  is  more  or  less  changed,  not  only  externally,  but  in  its 
inmost  recesses."-"^  There  are,  it  is  true,  balancing  excitants 
in  the  organism ;  the  reproductive  are  not  the  only  ones ;  and 
the  authors  of  the  above  passage  rightly  warn  against  a  young 
man  becoming  self-conscious  on  the  ground  of  the  excitant 
process.  Still,  that  process  is  assuredly  a  possible  factor  in 
the  causation  of  nerve-strain. 

There  seems,  then,  to  be  no  sufficient  reason  for  ignoring 
the  cautiously  expressed  opinion  of  Dr.  Flint,  that  "prolonged 
continence  may  react  unfavorably  on  the  nervous  system. "3- 
This  is  practically  the  conclusion  reached  by  Godfrey  in  his 
lucid  and  temperate  discussion  of  the  physical  and  emotional 


31  Geddes  and  Thomson,  Problems  of  Sex,  p.  40. 

32  Quoted  in  Trail,  Sexual  Physiology  and  Hygiene,  p.  100. 


THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY.  83 

effects  of  celibacy.  "The  effect  of  the  cehbate  Hfe,"  he  says, 
"on  the  nervous  system  cannot  safely  be  said  to  amount  (with 
man)  to  more  than  a  general  lowering  of  tone,  a  diminution  of 
organic  activity,  with  periodic  crises  of  nervous  irritation. "-^^ 

Further,  it  will  readily  be  admitted  that  in  many  cases  the 
unfavorable  reaction  of  continence  on  the  nervous  system  does 
not  eventuate  in  any  marked  manner.  With  healthy  men  of 
naturally  temperate  passions  and  possessed  of  no  great  degree 
of  emotional  activity,  the  assertion  that  in  a  life  of  continence 
the  generative  organs  remain  dormant  without  detriment  to 
the  physical  health  is  no  doubtf  practically  true,  and  a  suf- 
ficient source  of  consolation,  but  such  a  type  in  humanity  is 
not  sufficiently  representative  to  be  taken  as  the  sole  starting 
point  from  which  to  reason  about  the  effects  of  celibacy. 

Griiber,  though  he  finds  himself  unable  wholly  to  ignore 
the  possibility  of  oppression  of  the  nervous  system  by  the 
retention  of  semen,  and  of  general  nerve-strain  as  a  result  of 
the  effort  of  continence,  largely  discounts  these  possibilities. 
So,  too,  does  Fiirbringer ;  though  he  finds  it  necessary  to  admit 
that  "there  are  some  sensually  inclined  and  neuropathically 
predisposed  persons  whose  history  does  contain  serious  symp- 
toms of  sexual  neurasthenia."  He  immediately  qualifies  this 
admission  as  follows :  "Often  enough  it  is  not  the  continence 
which  is  responsible  for  the  illness,  but  masturbation  and  las- 
civiousness."^'*  Yet  it  is  here  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  that 
the  said  masturbation  and  lasciviousness  may  have  to  be  under- 
stood in  very  many  cases  of  juvenile  and  ignorant  depravity, 
long  ago  repented  of  and  as  far  as  possible  foregone ;  so  that 
the  sexual  tension  and  neurasthenia  which  render  the  effort  of 
continence  so  great  a  strain,  and  upon  which  that  effort  reacts, 
cannot  be  regarded  as  an  indication  of  deliberate  wickedness 
and  impurity,  and  certainly  deserve  sympathy  at  least  as  much 
as  condemnation. 


^'^  Science  of  Sex,  pt.  ii,  ch.  ii,  sees.  2  and  3. 

3'*  Senator    and    Kaminer :     Health    and    Disease    in    Relation    to 
Marriage  and  the  Married  State  (from  the  German),  pp.  20fF.  229. 


84  THE    BATTLE   OF   CHASTITY. 

D.  Pastorello'"''**  observes :  "The  science  of  Herzen,  Heim, 
Forel,  Good,  Vornig,  Weger,  Foa,  Mantegazza  and  a  thousand 
others  whom  it  is  not  worth  while  to  enumerate  here,  has 
affirmed  that  abstinence  has  never  caused  any  disturbance  to 
health  in  the  person  practising  it ;  which  does  not  mean,  how- 
ever, that  where  the  conditions  are  unusual,  the  being  chaste 
cannot  cause  such  disturbance,  especially  if  to  such  a  temporary 
or  continued  state  of  sexual  abstinence  are  added  habitual  in- 
fractions of  the  general  laws  of  hygiene.  It  is  quite  intelli- 
gible how  a  sedentary  life  or  intellectual  excitement  with  a 
voluptuous  aspect  makes  chastity  difficult  and  somewhat 
detrimental." 

Forster  makes  a  similar  admission. 34b 

Havelock  Ellis  and  Moll  conclude  that  in  connection  with 
the  vigor  of  the  nervous  system  and  activity  of  the  mind,  sex- 
ual intercourse  is  in  certain  cases  more  favorable  than  absti- 


nence. 


34c 


Dr.  Allen,  editor  of  the  English  translation  of  Ultzmann's 
work  on  Genito-urinary  Neuroses,  concludes  as  follows  in 
regard  to  the  alleged  detrimental  influences  of  prolonged  con- 
tinence upon  sexual  power  (and  consequently  upon  nerve- 
power  in  general)  :  "The  probability  is  that  healthy,  normal 
men — that  is  to  say,  the  vast  majority  of  them — may  practise 
continence  for  many  years,  or  indefinitely,  without  any  loss  of 
sexual  power.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  also  doubtless  true  that 
a  certain  proportion,  perhaps  a  large  proportion  of  sexual 
neurasthenics, •''•'^   are   injured   morally  and  physically  by  pro- 


3^*1  II  Rogo,  ann.  ii,  p.  65. 

3-tb  Op.  cit.,  p.  127. 

s^'^  Handbuch  der  Sexualwissenschaften,  p.  699. 

35  I  would  make  here  the  obvious  comment  that  it  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  the  sexual  neurasthenic  is  necessarily  an  invalid  or 
valetudinarian  in  a  general  way.  On  the  contrary,  his  general  health 
may  be  mamtained  at  a  fair  standard,  though  the  neurotic  condition 
will  partially  unfit  him  for  work,  or  at  least  only  permit  of  his  per- 
forming his  duties  under  great  difficulties. 

Eulenberg    (Senator    and    Kaminer,    op.    cit.,    vol.    ii,    pp.    884ff.) 


THE   BATTLE   OF   CHASTITY.  85 

longed  continence,  and  run  a  risk  of  losing  thereby  what  little 
sexual  vigor  they  have."^^^ 

This  is  also  Freud's  opinion.  "The  more  anyone  is  pre- 
disposed to  neurosis,  the  harder  it  is  for  him  to  endure  sexual 
abstinence."^^  Freud  explains  that  the  suppressed  factors  in 
the  evolving  sexual  impulse  exert  pressure  at  the  weak  points 


draws  a  darker  picture  of  neurasthenia  and  sexual  neurasthenia.  But 
this  somber  coloring  is  due  partly  to  an  assumption  which  runs 
through  his  discussion,  that  of  the  absence  in  neurasthenics  of  moral 
effort;  and  also  to  the  prominence  given  to  the  severer  forms  of 
neurasthenia.  He  lays  stress  on  the  weakening  and  misdirection  of 
the  will  in  such  subjects,  as  if  such  moral  defects  were  almost  the 
invariable  accompaniments  of  their  condition.  But  this  presentation 
of  the  situation,  at  any  rate  as  regards  young  men,  requires  consider- 
able modification.  A  just  estimation  of  the  moral  and  religious  fac- 
tor among  the  psychical  elements  of  neurasthenia  makes  the  general 
outlook  more  encouraging.  Forel  observes  that  even  habitual  mas- 
turbation does  not  necessarily  produce  an  all-round  weakening  of 
the  will  (op.  cit.,  p.  233).  If  the  masturbatory  habit  be  acquiesced  in 
and  persistently  indulged,  the  will-power  in  that  particular  direction 
becomes  doubtless  more  and  more  undermined :  this  fact  can  be 
verified  from  many  of  the  cases  cited  by  the  medical  authorities ;  but 
if  the  will  be  opposed  to  the  growth  of  the  habit,  and  summon  to 
its  aid  all  these  elevating  influences  which  are  comprised  in  the 
religious — mystical  in  part,  but  not  exclusively  mystical — conception  of 
Divine  grace,  then,  neuropathic  symptoms  and  conditions  notwith- 
standing, the  will  becomes  strengthened  in  the  course  of,  and  by 
means  of,  the  struggle.  The  symptoms  of  sexual  neurasthenia  are 
fully  enumerated  by  Moll  (Handbuch  der  Sexualwissenschaften,  pp. 
697ff.).  Several  of  them  are  of  no  great  importance,  and  the  severer 
ones  comparatively  rare.  Moreover  sexual  neurasthenia  is  a  condi- 
tion included  in  and  subordinate  to  the  whole  phenomenon  of  neuras- 
thenia. A  great  deal  has  to  be  discounted  from  a  patient's  tendency 
to  consider  all  his  neuropathic  symptoms  as  sexual  in  origin.  The 
real  fact  often  is  that  "a  certain  degree  of  weakness  of  the  sexual 
functions  in  one  form  or  another  is  largely  the  outcome  of  a  neuras- 
thenic patient's  imagination,  and  such  as  exists  is  merely  part  and 
parcel  of  the  general  want  of  tone."  (Sanatogen  in  Diseases  of  the 
Nervous   System,   by  a   London    Physician,  p.    12.) 

35a  Op.  cit.,  p.  168. 

3<J  Freud,  Neurosenlehre,  Zweite  Folge,  p.  187. 


86  THE    BATTLE   OF    CHASTITY. 

of  a  congenitally  neurotic  constitution,  and  either  remain  true 
to  their  sexual  character,  producing  some  abnormahty  or  per- 
version of  function,  or  are  transmuted  into  non-sexual  patho- 
logical states. 

It  would  be  mere  blind  obstinacy  to  ignore  this  large  body 
of  medical  opinion,  the  outcome,  as  such  opinion  should  be,  of 
an  unprejudiced  inductive  study  of  the  facts. 

But  now,  and  not  till  now,  it  is  right  to  enter  upon  a 
further  stage  of  our  discussion  of  the  trials  of  chastity.  The 
medical  information  may  now  fittingly  be  brought  into  touch 
with  ethics.  The  deprivations  and  sufferings  of  chastity  may 
be  transformed  into  ethical  values  in  a  comprehensive  evolu- 
tionary scheme. 

Granting,  as  the  facts  oblige  us  frequently  to  do,  that 
prolonged  continence  may  be  detrimental  to  bodily  health,  we 
cannot  yet  concede  that  a  man  in  whom  this  condition  is  pres- 
ent may  break  the  law  of  continence  without  more  ado,  and 
by  resort  to  any  of  the  methods  commonly  regarded  as  breaches 
of  sexual  morality.  This  were  a  reckless  inference.  For  the 
question  as  to  the  necessity  of  sexual  intercourse  in  a  given 
case  has  wider  bearings,  as  already  suggested,  than  in  relation 
to  bodily  health ;  and  even  in  this  latter  limited  aspect,  as 
Forster  in  criticising  Freud,  truly  says,  "it  might  well  happen 
that  a  man  should  have  nervous  trouble  through  sexual  absti- 
nence, and  yet  should  win  thereby  a  steadfastness  of  character 
which  would  ensure  him  immunity  from  nervous  disturbances 
of  a  far  worse  kind."^^ 

The  conflict  must  be  fought  out  in  each  man's  soul  round 
the  great,  comprehensive,  and  in  itself  perfectly  legitimate 
question  :  How  far  is  the  gratification  of  the  sexual  longing 
a  necessity  of  my  whole  life,  of  my  spiritual,  moral,  intellectual, 
and  physical  development?    A  vast  multitude  of  circumstances 


2^  Forster,  op.  cit.,  p.  117.  I  note  that  the  importance  of  this 
observation  has  impressed  others  besides  myself.  Cp.  Exner,  The 
Phj'sician's  Answer  (New  York  and  London),  p.  9. 


THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY.  87 

will  help  in  a  conscientious  mind  to  its  decision.  It  may  be, 
in  some  lives  it  must  be,  that  higher  necessities  will  outweigh 
this  one ;  that  from  motives  of  prudence  or  of  unselfishness,  a 
man  will  temporarily  or  altogether,  in  face  not  merely  of  in- 
convenience, but  of  some  degree  of  real  suffering,  waive  his 
right  of  seeking  the  indulgence  of  sexual  love,"^^  and  offer  the 
sacrifice  of  his  sex  life  upon  the  altar  of  humanity. 

Freud  observes  that  the  psychical  value  of  sexual  gratifica- 
tion rises  concurrently  with  the  renunciation  of  such  gratifica- 
tion.39  Thus  it  results  from  the  most  penetrating  psychological 
analysis  of  the  sex  life  yet  made,  that  this  life  falls  under  the 
highest  law  of  development,  the  ethical  law  of  sacrifice.  The 
significant  word  Opfer  appears 'in  Freud's  sketch  of  the  sex 
life.'*^  We  shall  meet  this  conception  again  in  our  study  of 
the  sex  life  in  relation  to  the  Christian  Gospel;  the  very  word 
Opfer  will  reappear,  connecting  the  line  of  thought  we  are  now 
following,  with  that  other.  None  the  less,  the  Christian  Reve- 
lation contains  indications  that  it  is  in  the  mind  of  God  to 
qualify  the  severity  of  the  aforesaid  law's  application.  This 
fact  justifies  us  in  seeking  legitimate  ways  of  lessening  the 
tensions  of  the  sex  life. 

And  with  many  people  the  struggle  occasioned  by  the  vol- 
untary observance  of  celibacy  for  longer  or  shorter  periods  is 


■'^  Cp.  Driver's  comment  (which  may  fairly  be  quoted  in  this 
connection)  on  Deut.  8:3:  "The  words  'Man  doth  not  Hve  on  bread 
alone,'  are  of  wider  appHcation ;  and  they  are  accordingly  quoted  by 
our  Lord  in  His  answer  to  the  tempter  (Matt.  4:4),  for  the  purpose 
of  showing  that  needs  of  sense  do  not  exhaust  the  requirements  of 
human  nature,  that  man  leads  a  spiritual  life  as  well  as  a  physical 
life,  and  that  by  yielding  inopportunely  to  physical  necessity,  higher 
spiritual  needs  may  be  neglected  or  frustrated."  The  self-sacrifice  of 
celibacy  is  reckoned  in  Christ's  recorded  sayings  among  the  means 
by  which  men  possess  the  Kingdom  or  Presence  of  God  (St.  Matt. 
19:12).  For  reasons  given  by  Dalman  (Words  of  Jesus,  E.  tr., 
p.  122),  the  words,  ivvovxi-<^av  eavrovs  have  to  t)e  understood  of  sym- 
bolic   self-mutilation. 

.39  Freud,  Neurosenlehre,  ii  Folge,  p.  187. 

40/(;.,  p.    185. 


88  THE    BATTLE   OF    CHASTITY. 

perhaps  the  hardest  moral  struggle  in  life.  Multitudes  of  men 
confuse  the  issues  in  their  own  consciences,  and  because  the 
strength  of  their  passions  goes  in  great  measure  to  prove  that 
sexual  intercourse  is  for  them  a  necessity,  argue  themselves, 
without  pausing  to  give  an  honest  consideration  toi  their  pros- 
pects of  marriage,  into  supposing  that  by  consequence  fornica- 
tion is  a  necessity. 

Dealing  first  with  casual  fornication,  or  prostitution,  we 
observe  that  the  proposition,  "Prostitution  is  socially  neces- 
sary," may  be  of  force  as  a  historical  generalization,'*  ^  because, 
however  clearly  the  wrongfulness  and  unwisdom  of  fornica- 
tion may  be  demonstrated,  there  always  have  been  in  history, 
and  there  are  now,  multitudes  of  people  who  will  not  weigh 
prudential  and  ethical  considerations;  but  the  proposition  be- 
comes dangerous  and  inadmissible  when  used  by  individual 
men  as  a  maxim  by  which  to  justify  their  own  lapses  into 
sexual  misconduct.  To  translate  deductions  which,  though 
relatively  true,  are  certainly  painful  and  sad,  into  general  rules 
of  conduct,  is  the  falsest  of  false  philosophy.  We  must  take 
the  world  as  we  find  it?  True,  but  this  does  not  justify  us 
in  leaving  it  as  we  have  found  it,  without  any  effort  on  our 
own  part  to  raise  its  ideals  and  to  promote  its  welfare. 

Indulgence  in  casual  fornication,  besides  being  physically 
dangerous,  is  subversive  of  social  order.  Moralists,  both  an- 
cient and  modern,  who  have  taken  a  profound,  religious  view 
of  life,  have  never  ceased,  on  this  point,  to  appeal  to  men's 
noblest  motives,  to  urge  them  at  the  cost  of  strong  and  pain- 
ful effort  to  refrain  from  seeking  indulgence  in  this  manner, 
to  warn  them  away  from  the  deep  ditch  wherein  health  is 
jeopardized,  self-control  is  destroyed,  and  pure  affections  are 
plunged  into  the  mire.  But  there  is  noi  need  here  to  argue  at 
large  against  seeking  indulgence  in  casual  fornication.  Men's 
reasons  for  avoiding  it  are  no  novel  ones.     They  are  the  old 


41  Many    Catholic    theologians    have    so    regarded    it.      See    the 
opinions  collected  by  Bloch    (Die  Prost.,  Bd.  i,  pp.  645ff.). 


THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY.  89 

danger  signals  which  for  ages  past  have  stood  before  this  dark 
abyss. 

The  following  history,  given  to  the  writer  by  a  friend  who 
has  seen  much  of  the  world,  terribly  exemplifies  the  results  of  gen- 
eral demoralization  which  may  follow  a  single  visit  to  the  brothel. 

A  case  of  gross  misconduct  had  occurred  at  school,  which  it  was 
decided,  at  a  prefects'  meeting,  to  punish  with  flogging;  and  the 
execution  of  this  decision  was  deputed  to  one  of  the  head  boys,  whose 
character  seemed  as  upright  and  his  principles  as  religious,  as  his 
physique  was  admirable.  The  flogging  was  duly  performed,  but  a 
melancholy  interest  attaches  to  the  career,  not  of  the  culprit,  but  of 
the  boy  chosen  to  punish  him.  This  fine  and  strong  young  fellow 
went  to  one  of  the  universities,  and  there  at  first  led,  so  far  as  could 
be  known,  a  singularly  moral  and  careful  life,  avoiding  fast  and  un- 
desirable company.  Then  some  vicious  influence  destroyed  the  reso- 
lution of  this  young  man.  In  an  evil  hour  he  was  persuaded  into  a 
brothel.  From  that  moment  a  menacing  and  destructive  element  became 
fused  with  his  moral  life.  A  year  or  two  afterward  my  informant 
hears  of  him  again,  but  now  the  man  is  a  member  of  the  most  dis- 
solute set  at  the  university,  and  rapidly  becoming,  inter  alia,  a  hard 
drinker.     Then  for  some  years  my  informant  loses  sight  of  him,  but 

at  length  hears  casually  that  ,  a  member  of  the  university,  has 

been  committed  to  prison  to  serve  a  heavy  sentence.  The  name  men- 
tioned was  the  name  of  this  very  man,  and,  as  far  as  my  informant's 
observation  went,  the  moral  rot  which  wrought  such  disaster  to  this 
once  promising  career,  set  in  as  the  direct  result  of  the  ill-omened 
contact  with  prostitution.  That  one  touch  removed  the  moral  control, 
and  caused  the  rapid  exaggeration  of  the  sensual  passions  of  the 
man.  Such  a  record,  whatever  faith  one  may  have  in  the  power  of 
goodness  ultimately  to  reverse  the  temporal  triumphs  of  evil,  is 
surely  miserable  and  fearful  beyond  our  powers  of  estimation. 

Fornication  broadly  considered  we  shall  deal  with  more 
fully  in  another  chapter.  Here  it  is  enough  to  lay  emphasis  on 
the  fact  that  the  sexual  instinct,  almost  more  than  any  other 
instinct  in  human  nature,  may  be  exaggerated  to  the  great 
detriment  and  hindrance  of  man's  true  development,  if  the 
indulgence  of  it  is  claimed  with  reckless  haste,  or  wantonly 
allowed.  The  men  who  throw  the  reins  upon  the  neck  of 
their  desire,  whose  eyes  wander  restlessly  after  the  animal 
beauty  of   women,   who  continually   excuse   themselves    from 


90  THE    BATTLE    OF   CHASTITY. 

making  any  attempt  to  curb  the  excessive  activity  of  their 
morbid  passions,  whose  utter  want  of  manHness  in  seducing 
women  by  lying  promises  and  other  base  means,  and  then 
deserting  them,  proves  that  their  motive  for  seizing  ihicit  sex- 
ual pleasure  is  not  merely  the  force  of  passion  acting  upon 
:i  weak  will,  but  a  callous  selfishness  destructive  of  the  chival- 
rous instincts  which  ought  to  ennoble  masculine  desire — these 
wretches,  not  nervous  youths  who  with  gloomy  forebodings 
and  many  a  miserable  failure,  still  struggle  upward  out  of 
the  unclean  morass  into  which  boyhood's  ignorance  has  led 
them,  have  cause  to  fear  for  the  future.  These  are  destroy- 
ing their  manhood,  all  that  is  noblest  and  best  in  it,  to  far 
greater  purpose  than  the  other,  and  as  surely  as  there  is  a 
principle  of  justice  in  the  universe,  are  heaping  up  against 
themselves  judgment  and  retribution  before  which  the  penal- 
tie?  of  juvenile  weakness  must  fade  into  insignificance. 

We  have  all  heard  of  some  ghastly  tragedy  of  murder,  fol- 
lowing on  outrage.  The  possibility  within  human  nature  of 
the  fearful  revulsion  of  feeling  which  occasions  such  a  crime 
is  marvelous,  inexplicable;  one  of  the  darkest  spots  in  the 
world's  mystery  of  iniquity.  This  gross  crime  is  regarded  by 
society  as  a  deed  of  almost  superhuman  wickedness,  the  act 
of  one  whose  state  is  not  far  removed  from,  that  of  a  maniac 
or  a  fiend ;  but  shall  we,  on  a  closer  consideration,  be  disposed 
to  place  it  so  entirely  by  itself  ?  Shall  we  not  see  reason  rather 
to  mark  it  as  merely  one  hideous  form  out  of  a  group  ?  Is  its 
inner  working,  are  the  motives  which  prompt  its  commission, 
any  more  hateful  and  unnatural  than  those  with  which  some 
men  deliberately  and  of  set  purpose  abandon  the  women,  whose 
virtue  they  have  overcome,  to  desolation  and  misery?  The 
callous  indifference,  or  the  overwhelming  hate  swiftly  super- 
vening on  the  accomplished  desire,  the  cruel  "Rise  up !  Be- 
gone !''•*-  that  fall  first  upon  the  ear  of  the  seduced  and  hum- 
bled woman — what  difi'erence  is  there,  morally,  between  these 


42  n  Sam.   13  :  15. 


THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY.  91 

and  the  blow  of  the  knife  that  rids  the  world  of  her?  Woe  is 
unto  men  for  the  exceeding  strength  of  sexual  passion,  for  the 
straitness  of  life's  conditions,  for  the  longings  of  love  cruelly 
checked  and  delayed,  for  a  wearing  struggle  to  preserve  chas- 
tity, and  its  sad,  perhaps  its  inevitable,  failures ;  but  much 
more  woe  for  the  godlessness  and  hardness  of  heart  and  want 
of  sympathy  which  make  acts  of  unchastity  a  thousand  times 
more  base  and  evil  than  oftentimes  they  are  in  themselves,  for 
the  cowardly  selfishness  which  snatches  at  delight,  but  will 
make  no  movement  to  lighten,  for  her  whose  charms  have  be- 
stowed it,  the  consequent  responsibility  and  shame ! 

As  far,  then,  as  fornication  is  concerned,  the  necessity  of 
sexual  gratification,  manifesting  itself  in  a  man's  life,  must 
be  said  to  be  conditioned  and  overborne  by  higher  moral  neces- 
sities. None  the  less  it  exists,  it  presses,  it  gives  rise  in  secret 
to  distressing  physical  trouble  and  mental  anxiety ;  it  cannot 
be  brushed  aside  by  a  statement  of  the  abstract  possibility  of 
chastity  in  single  life.  It  must  be  considered,  in  the  sphere  of 
conscience,  in  relation  to  marriage. 

Dr.  Elizabeth  Blackwell,  the  author  of  well-known  works 
on  sexual  morality,  would  define  the  right  of  sexual  intercourse 
and  the  obligation  to  celibacy  by  reference  to  a  hard  and  fast 
rule  of  years.  Men's  lives  are  mapped  out  into  zones  or  periods 
of  years.  Puberty  and  nubility  as  physical  states  are  not,  ac- 
cording to  this  writer,  to  be  confused.  Up  to  the  age  of  20  a 
man's  sexual  development,  apart  from  the  consideration  of  his 
immature  experience  of  life,  has  not  yet  rendered  him  mar- 
riageable, and  even  up  to  25  years  it  is  well  for  him  to  remain 
celibate,  for  the  same  reason.  After  that  age  celibacy,  though 
no  longer  generally  binding  upon  men,  is  still  possible  for  them. 

These  principles  are  too  rigid  to  be  ruthlessly  applied. "^-^ 


43  Reform  of  the  marriage  laws  is  foreshadowed  in  many  coun- 
tries (see,  e.g.,  for  Great  Britain,  the  Reports  of  the  Royal  Commis- 
sion on  Divorce),  and  the  age  at  which  marriage  can  be  legally 
contracted  is  one  of  the  points  which  may  be  dealt  with.  It  has 
already    been    suggested    in    some    quarters — e.g.,    by    a    section    of 


92  THE    BATTLE   OF   CHASTITY. 

Baldly  stated  they  curtail  unduly  individual  liberty,  and  they  do 
not,  as  here  enunciated,  take  sympathetic  note  of  the  immense 
diversity  of  life  and  circumstances,  and  of  the  varying  strength 
of  passion  among  men.  Moreover,  the  argument  seems  to  fix 
the  age  of  physical  nubility  too  late.  In  answering  the  ques- 
tion :  What  is  the  ordinary  age  of  nubility  among  men,  an 
important  place  must  surely  be  assigned  to  considerations  of 
fertility.  The  careful  investigations  of  the  New  South  Wales 
statistician,  Mr.  T.  A.  Coghlan,-!^  disclose  the  fact  that  the 
summit  of  natality  for  a  man  is  at  the  youngest  age  of  man- 
hood, or  rather  at  the  age  of  21,  which  is  the  lowest  investi- 
gated. It  may  be  urged,  however,  on  the  other  side,  that  even 
if  a  man's  fertility  is  greatest  before  his  26th  year,  the  quality 
of  his  procreative  power  is  not  at  its  best  till  after  that  age.*^ 
The  children  born  to  a  man  over  25  will  probably  be  more 
vigorous  than  those  born  to  a  younger  man.^s  This  law  of 
procreation  may  hold  good  where  sexual  passions  are  normal 


reformers  in  Norway  (Eugenics  Review,  vol.  iv,  no.  4) — that  a 
minimum  age,  and  that  not  a  low  one,  for  marriage  should  be  fixed 
by  law.  Such  a  proposal  needs  unusually  careful  consideration.  A 
tyranny  might  be  set  up  in  society,  on  an  age  basis,  or  on  a  basis  of 
eugenic  doctrine,  more  oppressive  than  the  tyranny  of  ecclesiasticism ; 
which  latter  force  might  indeed,  in  such  a  case,  come  to  the  rescue 
of  the  oppressed;  for  as  we  shall  see  presently,  behind  all  human 
regulations  for  marriage  stands  the  religious  conception  of  it  pre- 
sented in  the  Canon  Law.  Considerations  of  expediency  and  utili- 
tarianism cannot  by  themselves  settle  the  morality  of  entering  on 
marriage. 

«  Childbirth  in  Xew  South  Wales,  p.'  10. 

^^  Lyman  Sperry,  Conf.  Talks  Betw-een  Husband  and  Wife,  p.  230. 

^^  Griiber  refers  to  statistics  showing  that  procreation  by  men 
under  27,  and  by  women  under  20,  among  Northern  Europeans,  tends 
to  produce  a  less  vigorous  offspring  than  when  the  parents  are  past 
those  ages.  But  no  doubt  facts  could  be  collected  which  would  modify 
this  generalization.  Havelburg  mentions  that  very  early  marriages 
among  the  Albanians  do  not  seem  to  impair  this  athletic  type  of 
humanity.  For  an  instance  of  a  man  of  exceptional  mental  power 
being  begotten  by  a  very  young  father,  we  may  cite  Warren  Hastings, 
whose  father  was  in  his  teens.     (S.  &  K.,  op.  cit.,  pp.  27,  174.) 


THE   BATTLE   OF   CHASTITY.  93 

and  there  has  previously  been  no  great  strain  on  the  nerve- 
power,  but  it  must  receive  many  modifications  from  the  circum- 
stances of  Hfe.  In  a  case — and  there  are  many  such — where 
overwork  or  the  effort  to  preserve  continence,  or  other  circum- 
stances have  caused  an  undue  pressure  on  the  early  years  of 
manhood,  it  is  likely  that  not  only  fertility,  but  general  procrea- 
tive  health,  would  be  considerably  diminished  by  the  time  the 
26th  year  is  reached.  A  rash  advocacy  of  early  marriage  has 
indeed,  the  author  trusts,  no  place  in  this  essay ;  it  is  merely 
suggested  here  that  sex  education  ought  not  to  involve  the  dis- 
regard of  real  difficulties  and  natural  facts,  however  great  may 
be  the  difficulty  of  ascertaining  the  true  place  of  those  facts  in 
the  scheme  of  social  evolution. 

At  any  rate,  people  who  think  it  derogatory  to  allow  that 
marriage  is  in  one  aspect  an  indulgence  granted  to  a  physical 
craving  of  human  nature,  are  losing  themselves  in  a  cloud  of 
illusion.  The  Bible  does  say  distinctly  that  marriage  may  be 
regarded  not  only  as  a  means  of  propagating  the  race,  or  of 
interchanging  social  help  and  comfort  between  man  and 
woman ;  not  only  as  a  sphere  in  which  lofty  and  noble  senti- 
ments find  free  scope,  but  also  as  a  lawful  outlet  for  one  of 
the  strongest  physical  impulses  in  human  nature.^''' 

That  marriage  may  be  contracted  in  part  seciiudam  indul- 
gentiam  has  been  inferred  by  the  Christian  Church  from  the 
Scriptural  teaching  above  referred  to.  Such  is  the  opinion  of 
Peter  Lombard  ;^^  fortified  by  similar  teaching  on  the  part  of 


47  1  Cor.  7;  Heb.  13:4;  I  Thess.  4:3,  4.  Rade  finds  that  St. 
Paul's  theological  doctrine  of  the  flesh  has  no  special  antisexual  tend- 
ency. (Die  Stellung  des  Christenthums  zum  Geschlechtsleben,  p.  24. 
Cp.  T.  C.  Hall,  art.  Asceticism  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Eth.,  vol.  ii, 
p.  670.)  Bloch  and  others  dispute  the  correctness  of  Rade's  judgment. 
(Bloch,  Die  Prostitution,  Bd.  i,  p.  617.)  The  truth  is  that  St.  Paul's 
own  feelings,  especially  his  religious  enthusiasm,  were  certainly  urging 
him  toward  an  adverse  view  of  sex;  but  something,  a  higher  inspira- 
tional factor,  withheld  him  from  adopting  it. 

*^  Sent.,  1.  iv,  dist.  xxxi,  sees.  3.  7.  Cp.  Aquinas,  Suppl.  Summje, 
qu.  xlix.    Aug.,  De  Bono  Conjug.,  ch.  v;  De  Bon.  Vid.,  ch.  iv. 


94  THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY. 

Augustine,  who  admits,  in  a  somewhat  reluctant  tone,  that  the 
titles  of  husband  and  wife  cannot  be  denied  even  to  those  who 
enjoy  conjugal  intercourse  ''non  gratia  proUs,  sed  explendce  lib- 
idinis  causa,"  with  the  reservation,  however,  that  they  do  not 
take  actual  steps  to  prevent  procreation — a  matter  which  will 
later  on  engage  our  attention  again.  The  simple  doctrine  of 
St.  Paul  that  if  persons  have  not  the  gift  of  continency,  they 
should  marry,  becomes  with  the  medieval  schoolmen  the  germ 
of  some  rather  subtle  ethical  theories,  the  inspiring  idea  of 
which  is  the  sinfulness  of  desire  even  in  matrimony,  except 
when  absorbed  in  the  intent  of  procreation.  It  has  a  better 
reflection  in  the  Anglican  marriage  service  ;^^  and  it  is  cer- 
tainly an  excess  of  delicacy  that  causes  many  of  the  clergy, 
when  that  service  is  read,  to  wrong  society  by  withholding  this 
important  part  of  the  scriptural  teaching  on  marriage.-^*^ 

Nothing  is  gained,  but  on  the  contrary  much  harm  is  done 
by  the  fashion  followed  by  too  many  moralists  of  ignoring  the 
struggle  of  the  sexual  nature  on  the  strength  of  false,  or  at  any 
rate  imperfect,  theories,  like  that  of  the  dormancy  of  the  gen- 
erative organs  in  celibacy.  In  its  own  best  interests  society 
must  sharply  criticise  such  theories,  as  tending  to  obscure  the 
right  of  marriage,  and  must  study  to  distinguish  the  false  from 
the  true  limitations  of  that  right.  Not  that  a  inere  assertion 
of  the  right  of  marriage  will  solve  the  conscience  problems  of 
the  sex  life  for  the  individual.  In  the  married  estate  itself, 
further  questions  of  conscience  will  appear,  which  will  engage 
our  attention  in  later  chapters. 


■i^  See  the  Exhortation.  Dean  Comber  (Companion  to  tlie 
Temple,  vol.  iv,  p.  43)  thus  comments  upon  it:  ".  .  .  there  is  an 
innocent  and  honorable  way  to  gratify  these  natural  appetites,  and  a 
secure  refuge  against  all  that  may  assault  our  chastity  offered  to  our 
choice  by  the  mercy  of  God.  .  .  .  It  is  allowed  to  all  to  marry, 
but  becomes  a  direct  duty  to  them  who  cannot  be  safe  without  it." 

^^  The  author's  own  practice,  in  response  to  special  request,  has 
been  to  read  the  second  clause  to  the  word  "sin."  By  this  procedure 
the  requirements  of  delicacy  are  sufficiently  met,  and  the  ethical  point 
in   question  is  not  ignored. 


THE    BATTLE   OF    CHASTITY.  95 

Further,  it  must  be  said  that  this  book  is  not  written  for 
people  who  are  impatient  of  all  proposed  solutions  of  the  sex 
problem  involving  moral  effort,  and  who  seek  for  solutions  no- 
where but  in  materialistic  philosophy.  Just  as  it  has  been  the 
object  of  these  pages  to  describe  the  true  conditions  of  the  sex- 
ual conflict,  so  it  is  their  object  to  estimate  fully  the  opportuni- 
ties of  controlling,  disciplining,  and  denying  one's  self  afforded 
by  this  conflict.  Men  are  by  no  means  justified  in  ignoring 
or  treating  lightly  the  difficulties  and  hindrances  which  the 
conditions  of  modern  civilization  place  in  the  way  of  marriage. 
The  need  must  be  admitted  of  exercising  all  possible  self- 
restraint  and  prudence,  and  the  duty  of  embracing  the  highest 
forms  of  self-sacrifice  for  which  men  have  strength  and  oppor- 
tunity must  be  recognized.  But  what  is  here  suggested  and 
emphasized  is  that  a  point  exists,  on  the  other  hand,  beyond 
which  in  some  lives  self-suppression  cannot  be  practised  with- 
out considerable  injury  to  tlie  physical,  mental,  and  even  moral 
health,  and  that  it  is  better,  ou  reaching  this,  point,  to  disre- 
gard in  large  measure  the  common  social  hindrances  to  mar- 
riage than  to  embrace  the  alternative  of  a  life  broken  with 
secret  impurity,  or  plunged  into  the  mire  of  prostitution.  Bet- 
ter is  it,  according  to  the  New  Testament,  to  marry  than  to 
burn.  Many  men  might  emerge  safe,  though  scorched,  from 
Moloch's  flame-bed,  did  they  consider  in  a  God-fearing  spirit 
the  application  of  this  profound  advice  to  their  own  cases. 
And  are  not  those  professed  guardians  of  morality,  who  hide 
this  divine  word  under  a  false  shame,  worthy  to  be  branded 
as  cowardly  and  unfaithful? 

In  Godfrey's  Science  of  Sex,  chapter  ix,  a  theory  of 
secret  illicit  sexual  unions  is  developed  with  a  certain  degree  of 
attractiveness,  as  affording  a  relief  to  society  amid  modern 
economic  difficulties. ^i    But  it  is  not  clear  that  anything  would 


51  A  similar  view  is  taken  by  Forel  {op.  cit.,  pp.  375,  412,  538), 
who  considers  that  free  love  ought  to  be  socially  tolerated,  and  that 
extra-marital  relations  may  even  be  recommended  in  cases  where 
severe  sexual  needs  seem  to  demand  such  a  concession.     At  the  same 


96  THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY. 

be  gained,  and  much  might  be  lost,  by  the  adoption  of  such  a 
suggestion.  Such  ilhcit  unions,  where  productive  of  happiness, 
permanent  relations,  and  a  normal  sex  life,  are  but  little  re- 
moved from  secret  marriages ;  indeed,  they  are  often  to  be 
considered  in  Godfrey's  own  view,  as  a  prelude  to  recognized 
marriage.  By  his  advocacy  of  preventives  he  endeavors  to 
introduce  an  element  of  physical  security,  which  he  claims  to 
be  free  from  objection  morally. 

The  answer  to  the  question,  What  constitutes  marriage?  has 
been  variously  given.  Even  in  these  days,  when  in  civilized  coun- 
tries men  have  grown  accustomed  to  see  marriages  take  place  under 
due  social  control,  and  even  from  the  lips  of  persons  whose  habit  is 
to  respect  such  control,  one  hears  occasionally  the  opinion  that  a  mar- 
riage would  be  ethically  valid  if  mtitual  consent  simple  and  unwitnessed 
had  been  exchanged,  without  ceremony,  civil  or  religious.  This  view. 
the  view  taken  from  the  ideal  standpoint  of  the  higher  ethics,  receives 
support  in  the  history  of  marriage.  The  conception  of  marriage  as  a 
sacrament  was  pushed  in  the  Middle  Ages  to  its  extreme  logical  con- 
clusion. Consensus  per  verba  in  prasenti  was  held  to  make  a  valid 
marriage   even   if   exchanged   in   occulto.^^     This   doctrine  is   inherent 


time,  he  upholds  monogamic  marriage  as  unmistakably  the  highest 
ideal  (id.,  p.  371  and  passim) ,  and  admits  that  to  the  successful 
realization  of  any  theory  of  temporary  marriage,  of  polygamic  mar- 
riage, or  of  a  recognized  concubinate,  an  obstacle  arises  at  once  from 
the  side  of  psychology,  in  the  shape  of  the  monandrous  instinct  of 
women  (id.,  pp.  84,  85,  424).  Practically,  free  love  tends,  as  afore- 
said, to  the  desertion  and  ultimate  prostitution  of  the  woman,  and 
although  in  some  cases  the  circumstance  of  a  woman's  having  means 
of  her  own  might  prevent  her  sinking  into  the  deepest  sloughs  of 
prostitution,  society  cannot  without  grave  injustice  base  upon  that 
circumstance  a  moral  distinction  between  her  and  her  less  fortunate 
sisters.  Forel  (op.  cit.,  p.  319)  admits,  but  regards  with  leniency, 
free  relations  between  the  young  peasantry  of  both  sexes  in  Ger- 
many, as  being  a  species  of  rehearsal  of  marriage  (Probeehe).  Such 
a  state  of  things  obtains  among  other  country  populations.  As 
regards  its  social  effect,  I  have  heard  ladies  of  experience  in  New 
Zealand  remark  that,  in  consequence  of  such  free  relations,  the  city 
prostitutes  in  that  colony  are  largely  recruited  by  country  girls. 

^-  Howard,  Hist,  of  Matr.  Inst.,  vol.  i.  p.  315 ;  Aquinas,  Suppl,  in 
Sum.   Theol.  Quaest,  xlv,  art.  v.     See   further,   Sanchez,  De  Matrim. 


THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY.  97 

in  the  ideal  conception  of  matrimony,  and  seems  referable  to  the 
earliest  possible  precedent,  that  of  marriage  among  primeval  .men. 
For  when  marriage  first  appears  in  the  human  race,  the  initial  con- 
sent has  to  be  thought  of  as  made  in  secret.  Nevertheless,  human 
society  soon  comes  to  perceive  the  necessity  of  publicity,  of  guaran- 
teeing the  consent  by  the  presence  of  witnesses.  Howard  shows  how 
vast  a  crop  of  evils  have  sprung  at  various  times  from  the  neglect  of 
this  precaution.  Lombard  himself  was  not  responsible  for,  and 
would  have  condemned,  the  rash  applications  of  his  teaching  which 
were  afterward  made.-"'^  Here,  as  on  other  points  in  the  considera- 
tion of  marriage,  we  perceive  the  Church  upholding  an  ideal,  yet  con- 
senting in  practice  to  the  conditioning  of  its  application.  But  in  spite 
of  all  that  is  urged,  and  justly  urged,  about  the  danger  of  an  un- 
guarded translation  of  the  sacramental  conception  into  practice,  the 
conception  itself  need  not  be  dismissed  as  wholly  vain.  The  idea  of  a 
sacramental  union  is  the  religious  core  of  the  utilitarian  notions  and 
social  safeguards  which  gather  round  marriage  in  the  course  of  his- 
tory. And  since  the  sphere  of  ethical  judgments  has  a  wider  reach 
than  temporal  social  requirements,  it  is  not  amiss  that  the  Church 
has  maintained  that  in  the  last  resort  the  ethical  validity  of  marriage 
does  not  depend  on  conformity  with  particular  sets  of  social 
regulations. 

But  if  for  the  moment,  and  for  argument's  sake,  the  pos- 
sibihties  of  social  confusion  may  be  ignored,  and  the  secret 
union  viewed  from  the  medieval  ethical  standpoint,  it  is 
quickly  apparent  where,  in  spite  of  a  certain  degree  of  approxi- 
mation, the  real  divergence  of  the  kind  of  secret  union  advo- 
cated by  Godfrey  from  the  institution  of  true  marriage  comes 
in.  For  according  to  Christian  ethics  it  might  be  conceded 
that  in  special  circumstances  marriage  should  be  performed 
by  unwitnessed  mutual  consent.  It  might  also  be  con- 
ceded, though  more  doubtfully,  that  couples  who  were  thus 
secretly  married  might  have  recourse  to  neomalthusian 
methods.  But  when  a  third  concession  is  demanded,  the  non- 
recognition  of  the  need  of  any  mutual  guarantee  of  fidelity 


Sacr.,  ch.  ii.  disp.  vi,  sec.  99;  de  Joriis,  de  Magn.  Matrim.  Sacr.,  p.  36; 
Hurtado,  Tract,  de  Matrim.,  disp.  v,  diffic.  2 :  the  art.  Marriage,  in  A 
Dictionary  of  English  Church  History ;  and  Dibdin  and  Healey,  English 
Church  Law  and  Divorce,  p.  74. 

i*'^  Sentences,  1.  iv,  dist.  xxviii,  sec.  2. 

7 


98  THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY. 

beyond  the  spontaneous  interchange  of  erotic  passion,  it  be- 
comes clear  that  such  a  proposal  strikes  at  the  root  of  social 
morality.  The  suggestion  that  the  period  of  engagement  is 
often  not  a  sufficient  preparation  for  the  full  sex  life  in  matri- 
mony is  doubtless  not  without  value,  but  there  are  better  and 
safer  ways  of  meeting  the  difficulty  than  the  one  proposed. 

Yet  at  least  we  may  thank  the  authors  of  such  social 
theories  as  the  one  just  examined,  for  having  compelled  us  to 
envisage  the  essentials  of  matrimony.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Western  Church  has  already  become  apparent.  It  compares 
very  favorably  in  respect  of  charity  and  humanity  with  that 
held  by  the  Eastern  or  Greek  Orthodox  Church.  "In  contradis- 
tinction to  the  Roman  (rather  Western)  Church,  in  which  the 
parties  themselves  are  considered  to  be  the  celebrants  of  the 
sacrament,  and  its  essence  is  held  to  be  either  the  consensus 
or  the  copula,  the  Orthodox  Church  considers  the  cleric  to  be 
the  celebrant  of  the  sacrament,  and  its  essence  the  conferring 
of  a  grace. "^^  Then  follows  the  logical  consequence.  "Wed- 
lock is  allowed  only  between  Christians,  and  at  least  one  party 
must  be  orthodox."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  parties  to  other  mar- 
riages have  been  and  still  are  exposed  to  persecution. -^^  A 
narrower  doctrine  of  marriage,  and  one  less  adequate  to  the 
needs  of  humanity,  than  this  orthodox  one,  could  not  well  be 
found. 

The  underlying  principle  recognized  in  the  Christian  doc- 
trine of  marriage,  viz.,  "consensus  facit  matrimonium,"  was 
shelved  at  the  Council  of  Trent,  which  ordained  that  marriages 
must  be  celebrated  in  facie  ecclesice.  It  was  quite  ignored  by 
English  post-Reformation  legislation.  Lord  Hardwicke's  Act 
in  1753  made  the  validity  of  marriages  dependent  on  public 
solemnization.  An  Act  passed  in  1823  returned  to  the  older 
principle  of  validity  so  far  as  to  regard  clandestine  rharriage 

54  S.  V.  Troitsky,  art.  Greek  Orthodox  Church,  in  Hastings, 
Encyc.  Rel.  Eth.,  vol.  vi,  p.  434b. 

55  Cp.  an  article  in  Auf  dcr  Wartc,  referred  to  in  The  Anglican 
Church  Magazine   (Hugh  Rees,  London),  April,  1914,  p.  78. 


THE    BATTLE   OF    CHASTITY.  99 

as  valid,  though  irregular.  But  in  this  Act  clandestine  mar- 
riage means  marriage  clandestinely  solemnized  by  a  clergyman. 
The  Act  does  not  reafifirm  the  older  principle  stated  above. 
There  is,  indeed,  in  modern  English  law  such  a  thing  as  pre- 
sumption of  marriage  from  cohabitation ;  but  this  theory  pre- 
sumes the  solemnization  of  a  marriage  before  witnesses,  in  the 
absence  of  any  record  of  such  solemnization.  So,  too,  the 
Scotch  irregular  marriage  requires  witnesses.  So  far  as  I 
see,'"*^  no  social  recognition  is  accorded  to  the  once  acknowl- 
edged principle  of  validity.  Even  the  Roman  Church,  to  which 
the  definition  and  conservation  of  the  nuptial  consensus  is  due, 
has  ere  now  found  itself  impelled  not  only  to  condition  the 
working  of  that  principle,  as  it  did,  from  motives  of  social 
expediency,  at  the  Council  of  Trent,  but  for  reasons  of  ecclesi- 
astical policy  to  ignore  it  altogether.  This  latter  development 
is  illustrated  from  the  controversies  about  clerical  marriage 
which  were  renewed  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries. 
The  Roman  authorities,  abandoning  the  Catholic  position,  then 
declared  that  civil  marriage,  and  we  may  infer  a  fortiori  mar- 
riage without  any  witnesses  at  all,  was  not  merely  irregular, 
but  invalid.^''' 

Recent  Roman  legislation  on  marriage  exhibits  similar 
vacillation.  On  the  one  hand,  the  Church  protects  marriage 
from  secular  interference.  It  does  not  recognize  even  paren- 
tal right  to  determine  marriage.  The  intending  parties  them- 
selves are  alone  responsible  for  their  choice.  Thus  far, 
Catholic  doctrine  champions  the  freedom  of  the  individual. 
But  when  we  learn  further  that  the  Roman  Church  has  now 
refused  to  recognize  even  betrothal,  unless  committed  to  writ- 
ing before  witnesses,  preferably  the  priest,  who  "sera  done  en 
mesure  d'empecher  des  engagements  imprudents,"  it  is  impos- 
sible not  to  feel  that  the  Church's  just  solicitude  for  the  matri- 
monial rights  of  the  individual  is  more  than  balanced  by  the 


^^  Cp.  Lord  Halsbury's  Laws  of  England,  vol.  xvi. 
^"  Lea,  Hist,  of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy,  vol.  ii,  pp.  380ff. 


100  THE    BATTLE   OF    CHASTITY. 

hierarchy's  anxiety  to  keep  a  hold  of  the  laity  over  whom  it 
rules. •'*'''  Yet  the  aforesaid  principle  remains  stored  up  in 
the  collective  mind  of  the  Church ;  and  circumstances  are 
imaginable  in  which  society  might  again  be  forced  to  admit  it. 
This  point  has  already  been  noticed  in  connection  with  certain 
proposals  for  marriage  reform.  It  is  further  fittingly  illus- 
trated by  the  following  letter  in  The  Times  of  April  6,  1914. 
It  is  obvious  that  the  "serious  and  binding  union"  contemplated 
by  the  writer  is  in  fact  the  non-witnessed  and  so  irregular,  yet 
none  the  less  valid  and  obligatory,  marriage  of  the  Western 
Canon  Law : — 

"I  think  it  may  serve  a  useful  purpose  to  enunciate  clearly  three 
inevitable  results  of  compelling  professional  women  to  give  up  their 
professions  on  marriage.  (1)  It  prevents  admirable  women  of  a 
certain  type  of  character  from  marrying  at  all;  (2)  it  deprives  the 
community  of  the  work  and  the  experience  of  another  type  of  woman 
who  does  not  feel  able  to  sacrifice  her  private  life  to  her  career;  (3) 
it  leads  other  women  of  a  more  perfect  balance  who  demand  the 
right  to  be  both  normal  women  as  well  as  intelligences,  to  (a)  wil- 
fully and  'dishonestly'  concealing  the  fact  of  their  marriage  from 
their  employers;  or  {b)  living  in  union  with  a  man  without  the  legal 
tie  of   marriage. 

''Regarding  the  last  alternative,  I  may  say  that  it  is  sure 
steadily  to  increase  if  interference  with  married  women's  work  is 
persisted  in.  My  own  experience  of  three  years  of  marriage,  in  which 
I  have  discovered  the  innumerable  coercions,  restrictions,  legal  in- 
justices, and  encroachments  on  her  liberty  imposed  on  a  married 
woman  by  the  community  or  sections  of  it,  has  brought  me  to  the 
point  of  being  ready  to  condone  in  any  of  my  educated  women  friends 
a  life  lived  (if  in  serious  and  binding  union)  with  a  man  to  whom 
she  is  not  legally  married.  Three  years  ago  such  a  course  would  have 
filled  me  with  horror. 

"Only  by  treating  married  women  properly,  i.e.,  by  leaving  them 
the  freedom  of  choice  allowed  to  all  other  individuals,  can  innumerable 
unexpected  evils  be  avoided." 

Forster  gives  great  prominence  to  the  form  of  marriage. 
But  though  he  rightly  emphasizes  the  form's  educative  value, 
his  argument  does  not  succeed  in  showing  it  to  be  a  permanent 
essential  of  the  sex  ethic. 


~'^  See  Vuillermet,  La  Vocation  au  Mariage,  pp.  101,  l63n. 


THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY.  101 

In  countries  where  civil  marriage  has  been  made  obliga- 
tory, people  will  sometimes  ignore  the  law,  if  in  their  case  it 
operates  oppressively.  They  will  then,  for  conscientious  rea- 
sons, have  recourse  to  ecclesiastical  marriage,  unrecognized 
though  it  is  by  the  State.  From  the  point  of  view  of  secular 
authority,  therefore,  such  people  are  living  in  an  irregular, 
immoral  relation.  This  is  not  so,  however,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  ecclesiastical  authority. -^^  These  secularly  unrecog- 
nized marriages  would  be  in  most  cases  ecclesiastically  wit- 
nessed. But  the  Western  Canon  Law,  as  we  have  seen,  carries 
us  yet  a  farther  step,  and  places  matrimonial  obligation  on  a 
higher  ground  than  can  be  fully  embodied  in  any  legal  sys- 
tem,— on  the  relation  betw^een  the  conscience  and  God. 

Most  men  nowadays  are  compelled  to  accept  vocations 
to  which  the  temporary  obligation  to  celibacy  is  inevitably  at- 
tached, and  owing  to  the  poverty  of  their  ethical  ideals,  many 
refuse  to  make  any  adequate  effort  to  fulfill  this  obli- 
gation. To  such  men  the  right  solution  of  sex  problems  may 
seem,  for  a  time,  a  matter  of  indifference,  and  it  were  perhaps 
a  vain  task  to  reason  with  them.  But  there  are  others — even 
in  the  case  of  soldiers  and  sailors,  among  whom  the  tradition-'^ 
that  continence  is  an  impracticable  obligation,  one  that  may 
freely  be  ignored,  is  peculiarly  strong  (though,  in  truth,  young 
soldiers  and  sailors  are  scarcely  worse  ofif  as  regards  sexual 
constraint  than  men  in  many  other  positions  and  circumstances, 
except  in  so  far  as  variations  of  climate  and  unavoidable  con- 
tact while  voyaging  or  campaigning,  with  dissolute  and  immoral 
people,  inflict  a  strain  of  peculiar  severity  upon  the  sexual 
nature) — others,  as  we  learn  from  Mr.  F.  T.  Bullen's  works 
and  many  other  sources,  whose  personal  religion  and  sense  of 


•^8  La  precedenza  dell'atto  civile  al  matrinionio  religiose  e  le  con- 
dizioni  della  moralita  in  Italia,  in  II  Rogo,  xi,  n.  3. 

59  The  roots  of  this  tradition  reach  back  to  pagan  antiquity. 
Roman  soldiers  were  forbidden  to  marry,  and  consequently  adopted 
irregular  connections  as  a  leading  principle  of  their  sex  lives.  (Bloch, 
Die  Prostitution,  Bd.  i,  p.  255). 


102  THE    BATTLE   OF    CHASTITY. 

the  moral  fitness  of  things  make  this  obligation  a  real  burden 
to  their  consciences. 

The  question  whether  the  regulations  adopted  in  certain 
professions  restricting  the  members'  access  to  marriage  are 
moral  or  not  must  be  decided,  not  by  the  utilitarian  motive 
underlying  them,  but  by  the  spirit  in  which  they  are  enforced, 
and  the  means  taken  to  enforce  them.  The  fact  that  they  exist 
at  all  is  a  sad  fact,  a  lamentable  necessity  of  civilization.  Still, 
in  all  the  circumstances,  it  is  reasonable  to  hold  out  to  a  man 
(as  is  done  in  the  British  army)  the  prospect  of  certain  privi- 
leges if  he  practises  sufficient  self-control  to  defer  marriage 
till  he  has  finished  a  certain  period  of  service,  and  to  let  him 
clearly  understand  at  his  entrance  into  the  service  that  if  he 
does  marry  he  will  incur,  not  punishment  or  dismissal,  but 
inevitably  an  additional  burden  of  risk  and  anxiety,  owing  to 
the  impossibility  of  extending  to  him  the  aforesaid  privileges. "^"^ 

It  is  obvious  that  all  such  regulations  may  readily  become 
instruments  of  oppression.  In  a  hard  official  spirit  authorities 
may  dispense  these  reasonable  privileges  to  married  employes 
with  unnecessary  reluctance,  or  to  a  needlessly  small  percent- 
age of  the  staff.  In  the  interests  of  chastity  and  of  national 
welfare,  the  army  regulations  and  those  of  other  professions 
in  respect  of  the  marriage  of  employes  ought  from  time  to 
time  to  evoke  public  interest  and  be  subjected  to  criticism ; 
otherwise  even  well-disposed  soldiers  and  clerks,  when  they 
discover  that  by  the  mandate  of  superiors  the  great  majority 
of  them — without  respect  to  any  differences  of  health  or  tem.- 
perament — must  for  a  considerable  time  forego,  under  stringent 
rules,  the  lawful  gratification  of  sexual  passion  in  marriage. 


6"  The  principle  of  such  regulations  is  more  moral  than  that  of 
some  Continental  army  regulations,  by  which  marriage  is  forbidden  to 
an  officer  unless  he  has  a  certain  minimum  of  means.  More  recently, 
the  right  of  withholding  marriage  from  young  soldiers  has  been 
vested  in  the  French  minister  of  war  (see  an  article,  Le  Droit  au 
mariage,  by  the  late  Mons.  Henri  Rochefort,  in  La  Patrie).  The 
social  abuses  and  the  low  view  of  marriage  to  which  such  legislation 
gives  rise  are  exposed  by  Forel,  op.  cit.,  pp.  284ff. 


THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY.  103 

and  that  this  state  of  things  calls  for  no  sympathetic  comment, 
will  find  in  their  exceptional  position  a  strong  additional  reason 
for  having  recourse  to  fornication  or  some  other  form  of 
sexual  immorality. *»i 

Let  theorizers  say  what  they  will,  a  young  man  of  vigorous 
passions  is  bound  to  face  the  conscience  question  with  which 
this  chapter  has  dealt.  He  can  find  a  true  answer  to  it  only  in 
one  way.  The  power  of  Christianity  alone,  not  the  clamorous 
modern  spirit  which  fretfully  appeals  to  legislation  for  the 
remedy  of  all  social  ills,  as  if  the  Gospel  were  a  touchstone  or 
a  talisman,  but  the  Divine  force  of  personal  religion,  can  ensure 
a  right  and  satisfying  decision.  No  hard  and  fast  rules  can 
be  laid  down,  no  zones  of  years  can  be  mapped  out,  to  define 
the  right  of  entering  on  marriage.  In  the  faith  of  the  indi- 
vidual soul  toward  God ;  in  the  sincere  effort  to  interpret  the 
Divine  Will  in  regard  to  one's  self  from  the  circumstances  and 
experiences  of  life;  in  the  resolve  and  endeavor  to  wait,  though 
the  delay  should  involve  self-sacrifice  and  bitter  conflicts  to 
preserve   one's   chastity,   until   the   time   comes   when   sexual 


•51  "Prostitution  in  a  garrison  town,"  says  a  writer  in  the  Morn- 
ing Post  (July  10,  1914),  "is  due  largely  to  the  fact  that  the  policy 
of  the  military  authorities  prevents  96  per  cent,  of  the  rank  and  file 
from  marrying  'on  the  strength.'  "  The  soldiers'  marriage  question  pre- 
sents indeed  serious  difficulties ;  but  it  must  at  least  be  noted  that  they 
cannot  be  solved  by  a  merely  prohibitive  policy  in  connection  with 
marriage  either  "on"  or  "off  the  strength."  Prohibition  of  the  latter 
class  of  marriages,  which  has  been  recently  advocated  for  the  British 
army  in  a  government  report,  is  justly  stigmatized  by  a  military  writer 
in  The  Spectator  (June  27,  1914),  as  "an  odious  and  futile  tyranny." 
To  develop  the  policy  of  making  marriage  accessible  to  soldiers  is,  for 
eugenic  as  well  as  moral  reasons,  a  desiderandum.  It  is  part  and  par- 
cel of  that  amplified  social  valuation  of  marriage  which  we  have  en- 
deavored to  exhibit  as  one  of  the  constructive  ideas  of  the  present 
essay.  The  main  conclusion  of  K.  Biicher's  interesting  study,  Die 
Frauenfragc  im  Mittelalter,  is  that  society,  if  it  would  avoid  disin- 
tegration in  the  not  distant  future,  must  "mit  alien  Kraften  darnach 
streben" — render  marriage  widely  and  generally  accessible  {op.  cit., 
p.  72). 


104  THE    BATTLE   OF    CHASTITY. 

indulgence  can  be  claimed  without  peril  and  without  dishonor — 
in  these  things  is  found  the  just  test  of  character;  by  these, 
within  a  man's  soul,  lives,  struggles  and  triumphs,  in  spite  of 
failures  and  defeats,  the  spirit  of  purity. 

In  passing  from  boyhood  into  the  dangerous  years  of  early 
manhood,  in  encountering  their  wearinesses,  hardships,  desires, 
temptations,  toward  what  beacon-light  can  a  man  safely  steer 
but  that  of  the  undying  truth  which  never  at  length  proves  a 
false  guide  to  any? — God  is  Faithful. "^^  Hq  y^,[\\  ^^q^  suffer  you 
to  be  tempted  above  that  you  are  able.  The  clouds  of  human 
cynicism  and  despair,  of  unworthy  and  excessive  timidity,  of 
rash  theories  of  the  obligation  tO'  celibacy,  may  not  obscure 
forever,  to  storm-driven  voyagers  upon  the  raging  sea  of  sexual 
temptation,  the  shore  whereon  shine  continually  not  the  least 
bright  of  the  golden  rays  of  faith,  hope  and  love  by  which 
earth's  darkness  is  Hghted — the  estate  of  Holy  Marriage,  under- 
taken in  the  fear  of  God.  To  that  shore,  by  a  multitude  of 
more  or  less  common  circumstances,  does  Providence  guide  the 
course  of  multitudes  w'ithin  whose  souls  is  the  power  of  faith. 

Finally,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  influence  of  sex- 
ual passion  on  its  physical  side,  even  where  it  is  one  of  the  most 
powerful  impulses  to  marriage,  is  never  a  man's  only  motive 
for  marrying.  Even  if  legitimate  sexual  gratification  was  in- 
deed one  of  the  things  which  he  sought  in  matrimony  (as  many 
a  man  must  acknowledge  to  himself  in  his  heart  of  hearts),  it 
cannot  be  inferred  that  he  did  not  expect  tO'  find  therein,  and 
in  the  event  actually  found,  things  of  far  greater  and  more 
enduring  value.  It  is  only  therefore  by  overstatement  of  the 
matter  that  the  recognition  of  this  incentive  to  marriage  can 
come  to  be  considered  as  fostering  a  disproportionate  increase 
of  sex  energy,  or  as  magnifying  the  value  of  woman's  physical. 
to  the  practical  exclusion  of  her  intellectual  and  moral  attrac- 
tions. 

In  short,  it  is  not  the  recognition,  as  Howard  seems  to 


62  1  Cor.  10:  13. 


THE    BATTLE    OF    CHASTITY.  105 

consider/^-"  but  the  accentuation  of  this  aspect  of  marriage  to 
the  exclusion  of  other  aspects,  that  is  fraught  with  moral 
danger. 

The    dictum    of    an    early    anonymous    Christian    author, 
quoted  by  Ziegler/"'-^  well  clinches  my  argument:— 

■'Tolle  concupiscentiam,  et  cessant  nuptise." 


''•■'  Howard,   Hist,  of   Matrimonial   Institutions,   vol.   i,  pp.  324ff. 
iii.  p.  249. 

^^  Ziegler,   Gesch.  der  christl.   Ethik,  p.  225. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Neomalthusianism. 

Historical  Aspects  of  the  Question — Economic  Aspect  of — 
Moral  Aspects  of — Analogies  of — Methods — Dangers — Principle  of 
Christian  Freedom — Neomalthusianism  in  New  Zealand — Family  Life. 

In  this  connection  a  question  naturally  arises,  the  con- 
sideration of  which  cannot  be  evaded.  Considering  the  diffi- 
culty of  bringing  up  a  family,  in  the  hard  circumstances  and 
amid  the  competition  of  modern  life,  and  considering  notwith- 
standing, the  frequently  imperative  need,  demonstrated  above, 
of  sexual  relief  in  matrimony,  is  it  justifiable  to  claim  the  in- 
dulgence of  the  natural  instinct,  and  yet  to  prevent,  by  arti- 
ficial means,  this  gratification  from  resulting  in  the  procreation 
of  children? 

Many  races,  at  various  stages  of  civilization,  have  at- 
tempted by  all  kinds  of  expedients,  some  of  them  of  the 
roughest  description,  to  solve  the  problem  of  the  regulation  of 
population,  knowing  full  well  that  otherwise  nature  would  pre- 
sent painful  solutions  of  her  own.i 

But  the  particular  form  of  the  problem  most  prominent  in 
modern  times,  the  artificial  control  of  procreation  itself,  has 
never  before  pressed  so  urgently  for  consideration. 

To  Juvenal,  indeed,  during  the  decadence  of  the  Roman 
Empire  it  was  an  added  symptom  of  the  degeneracy  of  morals 
that  the  Roman  ladies  resorted  to  forms  of  immorality  which 
rendered  conception  impossible.  He  also  alludes  to  the  prac- 
tice of  taking  drugs  with  the  same  object. i'^  But  these  allu- 
sions do  not  cover  the  ground  of  the  present  problem.     Nor 


1  See  Theilhaber,  Die  Geburtenbeschrankung  im  Alterthum  und 
bei  den  Naturvolkern,  in  Die  Neue  Gen.,  Jahrg.  8,  Heft.  4;  Roper,  An- 
cient Eugenics  (Oxford),  p.  1. 

la  Sat.  VI,  366ff. 

(106) 


NEOMALTHUSIANISM.  107 

does  the  matter  appear  to  be  mentioned  in  the  Bible,  Onan's 
trespass  being  primarily  against  the  law  of  levirate  marriage, 
and  not  precisely  to  the  present  point. ^ 

Christianity  has  ever  been  suspicious  of,  but  has  never 
unreservedly  condemned  non-procreative  marriage.  The 
apologist  Athenagoras,  indeed,  gave  prominence  to  the  fact 
that  Christians  used  conjugal  intercourse  only  for  procreation, 
thus  dissociating  themselves  from  the  pagan  wantonness  which 
Juvenal  had  rebuked.  Yet  the  early  Church  did  not  discourage 
the  syneisactic,  i.e.,  non-procreative  state  of  marriage  per  se, 
but  only  on  account  of  its  general  impracticability  and  the 
dangers  and  abuses  attendant  on  it.^ 

A  married  life  conducted  on  neomalthusian  principles  is 
differentiated  from  the  syneisactic  marriage  only  by  the  ascetic 
idea ;  and  we  have  already  seen  that  the  ascetic  principle  is  not 
to  be  uncritically  accorded  a  preponderance  in  a  revised  and 
progressive  sexual  ethic. 

Marriage  being  in  one  of  its  aspects  contracted  secundum 
indiilgentiam,  it  might  be  considered  a  logical  inference  that 
methods  of  preventing  conception  may  be  resorted  tO'  by  mar- 
ried people,  to  whom  the  indtdgentia  is  a  necessity,  but  who 
have  small  prospect  of  being  able  adequately  to  fulfill  the  obli- 
gations of  parentage.  And  it  must  be  said  at  once  that  argu- 
ments based  upon  the  principle  of  the  indulgenUa  are  not  with- 
out force,  and  render  it  possible  to  make  out  a  case  (as  is  done 
in  a  book  like  Scientific  Meliorism)  for  the  lawfulness  of  such 
a  practice,  considered  in  its  relation  to  right  moral  ideals. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  medieval  theologians  did 
not  extend  the  iiidulgentia  so  far  as  to  include  birth  control. 
In  their  estimate  of  the  morality  of  conjugal  intercourse,  they 
always  kept  their  eyes  on  the  propagation  of  the  race,  the 
boniim  speciei.  The  fact  that  medieval  moral  theology  formed 
and  retained  with  such  tenacity  the  conception  of  the  honnm 


-  See  Driver's  note  on  Gen.  38:  8,  10  (Westminster  Commentary). 
'■''  Cf.    H.   Achelis,   art.   Agapet?e,    in    Hastings,    Enc.    Rel.   Ethics. 
/  'idc  infra,  ch.  xiv. 


108  NEOMALTHUSIANISM. 

speciei  is  significant.  It  affords  an  instance  of  the  instinctive 
right  direction  of  the  theological  consciousness.  For  though 
it  is  surprising  at  firet  sight  to  meet  with  such  a  conception  in 
such  doctrinal  surroundings  as  those  of  the  Middle  Ages, — 
one  marvels,  that  is  to  say,  how  a  theological  consciousness 
whose  practical  belief  was  that  the  majority  of  the  human  race 
was  destined  to  endless  torment,  could  have  considered  the 
preservation  of  the  species,  the  numerical  augmentation  of 
humanity,  to  be  a  good  at  all ;  yet  nowadays,  when  our  theo- 
logical views  on  the  future  and  destiny  of  creation  are  being 
revised  and  changed  in  the  light  of  the  all-pervading  principle 
of  evolution,  we  see  that  the  conception  of  the  boniim  speciei 
is  sound,  and  that  it  preserved  medieval  religious  thought  from 
paralyzing  extremes  of  pessimism. 

But  now  and  again  very  dubious  argumentation  was 
grounded  on  this  conception.  The  medieval  teachers  and 
those,  e.g.,  Sanchez,  who  thought  on  their  lines,  defended  the 
setting  aside  of  reason  in  favor  of  instinct,  alleged  to  take 
place  in  conjugal  intercourse,  by  urging  that  though  the  boiiiim 
ratioiiis  was  indeed  temporarily  disregarded  by  the  parties, 
they  were  still  pursuing  the  honnm  speciei.  The  reasoning  is 
formally  correct  and  yet  curiously  unrelated  to  the  psycho- 
logical facts  it  is  intended  to  deal  with.  Sanchez  is  on  surer 
grounds  of  fact  where  he  admits,  on  common-sense  principles, 
that  a  man  cannot  be  performing  acts  of  superior  reason  all  his 
time.  It  is  in  fact  only  in  a  very  artificial  sense  that  reason 
can  be  said  to  be  abrogated  during  sexual  intercourse. 

In  any  case  the  conception  of  the  boiium  speciei  has  to  be 
reconsidered  in  the  light  of  modern  knowledge.  It  cannot  be 
said  to  be  promoted  by  procreation  in  which  eugenic  principles 
are  totally  ignored. 

Opponents  of  the  neomalthusian  doctrine,  like  R.  Ussher,'* 
while  they  rightly  dwell  upon  the  physical  and  moral  evils 
which  a  widespread  and  reckless  acceptance  of  the  practice 


4  Neomalthusianism,    London,    1898. 


NEOMALTHUSIANISM.  109 

mentioned  might  conceivably  give  rise  to,  and  as  a  matter  of 
fact  appears  to  have  actually  created  and  fostered  in  some 
countries,  nevertheless  they  greatly  underestimate  the  real 
pressure  of  circumstances  by  which  some  are  driven  to  adopt 
this  practice. 

Students  of  social  science  may  indeed  adduce  arguments 
to  prove  that  the  right  ultimate  solution  of  the  population  ques- 
tion is  to  be  found,  not  in  neomalthusianism,  but  in  a  read- 
justment of  economic  conditions ;  but  while  this  readjustment 
is  slowly  taking  place,  what  is  to  be  the  attitude  of  married 
people  toward  the  neomalthusian  doctrine?"'  If  only  the  mon- 
eyed classes  or  healthy  individuals  were  concerned  with  this 
question,  it  would  be  easy  and  fair  to  urge  that  their  attitude 
ought  to  be  one  of  strict  repudiation.  It  is  impossible  to  think 
that  a  mere  desire  to  keep  up  a  high  social  position,  or  to  revel 
in  luxurious  and  expensive  surroundings,  would  justify  people 
in  artificially  preventing  procreation.  But  in  the  case  of  those 
who  have  some  hereditary  delicacy,  or  who  are  involved  in  a 
specially  hard  struggle  to  maintain  themselves,  it  is  not  so  easy 
to  decide  what  are  the  rights  of  the  question,  nor  can  the  arbi- 
trary suggestion  that  it  is  immoral  for  such  people  to  marry 
at  all  be  regarded  as  a  successful  attempt  to  cut  this  Gordian 
knot. 

It  is  for  instance  medically  recognized  that  tuberculous 
persons  are  frequently  subject  to  unusual  sexual  desire.''  To 
forbid  their  marriage  by  law  would  therefore  be  a  hardship  of 
exceptional  gravity ;  and  might  even  tend,  by  promoting  loose- 


^>  S.  Bridget  observes  that  it  is  only  within  certain  Hmits  and  in 
conjunction  with  other  factors  that  poverty  is  a  beneficial  school  of 
discipline.  If  too  severe  it  becomes  brntalizing  and  adverse  to  re- 
ligion. Consequently  Christianity  is  not  interested  in  its  prolonga- 
tion, and  is  not  committed  to  an  attitude  of  suspicion  toward  means 
proposed  by  science  for  its  reduction.  Such  means,  and  among  them 
the  means  we  have  here  in  view,  need  to  be  considered  on  their  merits. 
(Xeomalthusianismo  e  Christianesimo,  Coenobium,  ann.  viii,  fasc.  4.) 

"  Senator  and  Kaminer,  Health  and  Disease  in  Relation  to 
Marriage,  vol.  i,  pp.  370,  391 ;  Gemelli,  oj^.  cit.,  pp.  40,  109. 


no  NEOMALTHUSIANISM. 

ness  of  life,  to  defeat  itself  in  regard  to  its  main  object.  It  is 
not  in  the  direction  of  arbitrary  restraint  of  marriage,  but  in 
that  of  the  enlightened  use  of  marriage,  that  the  solution  of 
this  and  kindred  problemiS  should  be  sought. 

The  subject  of  eugenics,  or  the  improvement  of  the  race  by 
breeding,  forms  a  special  department  of  the  science  of  sex,  and  is  too 
large  a  field  to  be  entered  in  the  present  work.  No  more  than  a 
brief  reference  to  it  can  be  made  at  this  point.  That  it  is  a  subject 
full  of  importance  is  evidenced  by  the  attention  which  has  been  be- 
stowed upon  it  by  both  ancient  and  modern  thinkers,  and  organized 
effort  is  now  working  upon  it.  Indeed,  although  the  definite  results 
of  the  science  are  as  yet  few,  it  has  seemed  to  some  to  have  advanced 
sufficiently  to  justify  experimental  legislation  of  a  restrictive  char- 
acter in  regard  to  marriage.  It  should  be  observed  that  the  develop- 
ment of  the  principle  of  prohibition  in  this  application  involves  ex- 
tremely serious  issues.  It  is  certainly  one  of  the  chief  functions  of 
eugenics  to  prevent  bad  procreation,  the  propagation  of  unhealthy 
stocks :  but  it  must  be  emphasized  that  in  so  far  as  this  science 
neglects  to  develop  a  positive  policy,  viz.,  the  substitution  of  adequate 
compensations  for  the  sexual  rights  and  activities  it  contemplates 
taking  away,  and  relies  on  bare  prohibitive  legislation  to  attain  the 
aforesaid  end,  it  is  reactionary,  and  consequently  foredoomed  to 
failure. 

Modern  sexual  science  recognizes  with  ever-increasing  clearness 
the  need  of  providing  equivalents  when  circumstances  disallow  the 
development  of  the  primary  activities  of  the  sex  life.  If  society  should 
elect  on  insufficiently  established  eugenic  grounds  to  stifle — not  to  trans- 
form or  sublimate,  but  simply  to  stifle — the  sex  lives  of  an  increasing 
number  of  its  members,  it  would  thereby  tend  to  revert  to  the  un- 
sympathetic handling  of  sex  problems  which  history  has  already 
sufficiently  discredited ;  and  one  cannot  help  wondering  whether  it 
would  stop  at  the  sexual  department  of  life,  and  not  go  on  to  deal  in 
the  same  arbitrary  way  with  life  as  a  whole. 

It  is,  moreover,  doubtful  on  eugenic  grounds  alone,  whether  it 
is  politic  to  forbid  the  marriage  of  tuberculous  persons.  Havelock 
Ellis  found,  from  a  study  of  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography, 
that  genius  had  some  unexplained  predilection  for  a  consumptive 
organism.  Cp.  Newsholme,  The  Declining  Birthrate  (New  Tracts  for 
the  Times),  p.  54n. 

Of  course,  the  witness  of  history,  as  already  observed,  is 
strongly  against  the  rash  and  general  adoption  by  a  society  of 


NEOMALTHUSIANISM.  HI 

the  practice  of  prevention."^  A  widespread  disinclination  to 
accept  the  responsibiHties  of  parentage  constitutes  a  formidable 
menace  to  the  progress  and  future  prosperity  of  a  nation. 
Some  years  ago,  the  writer's  attention  was  drawn  to  the  fre- 
quency of  prevention  in  Australasian  society.  The  Austra- 
lasian Colonies  are  described,  somewhat  vaguely  and  inaccu- 
rately, as  young  nations;  in  reality  they  are  offshoots  of  an 
old  nation,  which  have  carried  with  them  from  their  former 
home  preconceived  ideas  as  to  a  standard  of  living.  Life 
in  the  British  Colonies  is  expensive,  and  involves  consider- 
able wear  and  tear,  as  few  people  have  private  means  adequate 


"^  In  the  idea  of  rashness,  as  applied  here,  must  be  included  the 
absence  of  religious  feeling.  This  aspect  of  the  matter  is  prominent 
in  France.  A  considerable  literature  has  sprung  up  around  the  ques- 
tion of  the  declining  birth  rate  in  that  country.  This  literature  is 
discussed  in  an  article  in  II  Rogo,  ann.  x,  no.  7.  The  writer,  follow- 
ing G.  Prezzolini,  La  Francia  e  i  francesi  nel  secolo  xix,  regards 
irreligion  as  the  most  dangerous  factor  in  the  situation :  "The  French 
middle  classes  have  extinguished  the  light  of  heaven,  but  they  have 
not  kindled  a  light  anywhere  else."  It  must  be  observed,  however, 
that  the  contention  that  religious  authority  is  an  effectual  deterrent 
to  artificial  prevention  is  as  yet  unproved  (Coghlan,  The  Decline  in 
the  Birth  Rate  of  New  South  Wales,  qu.  by  H.  Onslow  in  The 
Eugenics  Review,  vol.  v.  No.  2,  p.  150).  In  any  case,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  the  medieval  religious  conception  of  the  bonum  speciei 
should  not  be  interpreted  so  as  to  include  an  absolute  prohibition  of 
artificial  birth  control.  Among  the  most  noteworthy  of  the  many 
warning  utterances  on  the  national  dangers  arising  from  this  reck- 
lessness may  be  .cited  a  speech  by  the  President  of  the  United  States 
of  America,  delivered  at  New  York  before  the  National  Congress 
of  Mothers,  and  referred  to  by  English,  French,  and  doubtless  other 
journals;  an  article  by  Bishop  Barry  on  Agnosticism  and  National 
Decay  in  the  National  Review  for  March,  1905;  and  more  recently, 
Paul  Bureau,  La  propaganda  Neomalthusiana  e  le  sua  Repressione,  in 
II  Rogo,  ann.  iii,  no.  4.  Professor  J.  W.  Taylor,  in  an  article  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century  and  After,  adduces  instances  in  which  the  volun- 
tary limitation  of  the  family  would  have  deprived  the  nation  of  some 
great  figure  in  its  history.  But  as  we  are  unable  to  refer  the  produc- 
tion of  individuals  of  genius  to  any  law  of  procreation,  this  particu- 
lar  argument   is   of   uncertain    validity. 


112  NEOMALTHUSIANISM. 

to  the  support  of  a  family.  Good  salaries  are  hard  to  get  in 
the  Colonies,  as  elsewhere,  and  the  price  of  many  commodities 
is  high.  No  doubt  a  selfish  desire  to^  live  in  comfort  decides 
people  in  many  cases  to  use  preventives,  but  a  good  deal  must 
probably  be  allowed  for  the  sense,  in  some  degree  justified  by 
circumstances,  that  parentage  on  a  large  scale,  added  to  the 
burden  of  many  other  necessary  duties,  involves  not  merely  a 
loss  of  comfort,  but  a  thorough  overtaxing  of  the  strength. 
Accordingly,  we  have  the  spectacle  of  communities  settled  in 
new  countries  requiring  population,  but  unequal,  from  both 
physical  and  moral  causes,  to  the  task  of  supplying  this  want. 
It  will  readily  be  apparent  to  the  reader  of  M.  Zola's  novel, 
Fecondite — which  must  be  noticed  at  this  point — that  with  all 
its  good  moral  purpose,  the  exaltation  by  an  ideal  portraiture 
of  healthy  married  life  to  its  right  place  in  a  nation's  estima- 
tion, it  does  not  give  us  a  full  solution  of  all  the  conscience 
problems  involved  in  the  question'  of  artificial  prevention.  It 
carries  us  no  further  than  the  position  already  taken  up  in  this 
chapter,  that  on  every  ground  of  religion  and  right  reason  the 
rasli  and  general  adoption  of  the  practice  is  to  be  avoided.  M. 
Zola's  contention  that  number  spells  victory  is  subject  to  cer- 
tain qualifications.  The  dictum  in  the  setting  he  has  given 
it  really  means  that  number,  combined  with  vigor,  spells 
victory,  not  number  alone.  In  his  ideal  portraiture  of  married 
life  he  has  not,  indeed,  endowed  his  married  pair  with  private 
worldly  wealth,  and  thus  far  has  been  true  to  the  actual,  ordi- 
nary facts  which  people  have  to  face  when  they  marry ;  but 
he  lias  endowed  them,  in  a  measure  which  is  not,  unfor- 
tunately, reflected  in  the  lives  of  all  married  couples,  with 
physical  health  and  gaiety.  We  certainly  cannot  conclude, 
from  the  case  of  the  vigorous  Mathieu  and  Marianne  triumph- 
ing, not  seemingly  by  virtue  of  any  extraordinary  moral  or 
religious  eft'ort,  but  by  sheer  exuberance  of  vitality,  over  the 
strain  and  anxiety  of  both  procreation  and  toil,  that  all  mar- 
ried couples  can,  if  they  will,  equally  support  this  strain,  or 
that  it  would  be  beneficial  either  to  themselves  or  to  the  com- 


NEOMALTHUSIANISM.  113 

munity  for  them  to  attempt  to  do  so.  Neither  can  we  say,  as 
can  be  perceived  from  other  Hnes  of  reasoning  followed  in  this 
essay,  that  only  such  couples  as  have  the  physical  vitality  to 
support  this  strain  ought  to  have  a  social  existence. 

The  student  of  this  question  of  prevention,  therefore,  will 
read  Zola's  book  with  a  certain  intellectual  reservation,  as  not 
feeling  that  it  gives  the  matter  a  full  treatment  as  to  either  its 
ethical  or  its  utilitarian  aspect ;  which,  indeed,  was  perhaps 
impossible  in  a  novel.  However,  considered  not  as  a  philo- 
sophical treatise,  but  as  what  it  is,  an  attack  upon  the  unques- 
tionably evil  and  dangerous  aspect  of  prevention,  the  appear- 
ance of  Zola's  book  was  an  event  which  anyone  who  desires  the 
revelation  to  society  of  right  ideals  in  the  sphere  of  sexual 
ethics  could  welcome. 

All  this,  then,  does  not  fully  establish  the  case  against 
prevention  as  an  occasional  resource,  but  only  as  a  rash  and 
common  practice.  From  the  point  of  view  of  national  welfare 
a  declining  birth  rate  is  indeed  matter  of  serious  concern,  but 
such  concern  is  not  removed  by  the  addition  to  the  population 
of  infants  whose  heredity  may  reasonably  be  expected  to  make 
them  eventually  a  burden  on  the  community. 

The  proverb  "Necessity  has  no  laws"  will  not  indeed  en- 
dure incautious  applications ;  but  in  this  connection  it  seems  to 
have  a  certain  weight  of  truth.  In  circumstances  of  real  and 
proved  necessity,  it  would  appear  that  the  law  of  procreation 
might  be  isolated  from  the  rest  of  the  sex  life,  and  either  tem- 
porarily or  absolutely  suspended.  In  other  departments  of  life, 
a  man  may  in  numberless  ways  interfere  with  natural  processes 
or  phenomena,  as  they  affect  his  own  person,  or  the  persons  of 
those  under  his  care,  with  a  view  to  the  increase  of  health  and 
well-being,  and  the  removal  of  physical  inconveniences  and  de- 
formities. Such  interference  would  not  be  regarded  as  im- 
moral, provided  that  reasons  existed  sufficient  to  justify  it,  and 
that  it  was  exerted  after  a  manner  which  would  not  set  at 
defiance  the  results  of  scientific  inquiry  and  advance.  On  the 
other   hand,    for   people    to    undergo,    or   to   cause    others    to 

s 


114  NEOMALTHUSIANISM. 

undergo,  interferences  with  natural  developments  without  suffi- 
cient reason,  or  recklessly  to  remain  blind  to  the  light  of  science 
in  the  method  and  conduct  of  such  interferences,  would  be  an 
immoral  violation  of  nature's  laws. 

Similarly,  an  interference  with  nature  of  the  kind  con- 
templated by  the  neomalthusians  would  doubtless  be  immoral 
if  it  was  based  on  manifestly  insufficient  reasons,  or  was  carried 
out  by  reckless,  dangerous,  and  unscientific  methods,  but  it  is 
not  so  clear  that  it  would  be  immoral  if  it  w^as  conducted  by 
methods  which  science  showed  to  be  comparatively  free  from 
peril  to  man  and  wife,  and  if  its  object  was  to  prevent  the  con- 
ception not  of  healthy  children  in  a  household  where  there  was 
a  fair  prospect  of  supporting  them,  but  of  those  who  would 
inevitably  from  the  start  of  life  be  afflicted  or  seriously  men- 
aced by  some  hereditary  disease,  and  who  would  be  born  into 
households  where,  in  spite  of  every  effort,  proper  maintenance 
and  education  could  not  be  provided  for  them. 

Again,  man  may  curtail  the  birth  rate  of  the  lower  ani- 
mals, though  to  do  this  without  sufficiently  good  reasons  would 
be  a  wanton,  cruel  and  immoral  interference  with  nature.  Is 
it  certain  that  the  principle  upon  which  this  right  of  interfer- 
ence is  based — the  need  of  checking  an  increase  of  life  when 
the  conditions  requisite  for  its  proper  support  do  not  exist — 
may  not  be  extended  with  the  greatest  caution  and  reverence, 
by  the  use  of  appropriate  methods,  and  with  a  due  regard  to 
the  circumstances  which  differentiate  man's  sexual  nature  from 
that  of  brutes,  to  the  sphere  of  human  procreation? 

Nature  represses  potential  life,  in  man  and  in  creation  gen- 
erally, on  a  vast  scale,  by  methods  which,  though  they  may  be 
regarded  as  ultimately  providential,  act  nevertheless  in  an  un- 
intelligent way.  May  not  man,  within  certain  limits,  follow, 
by  the  exercise  of  a  reasoned  and  conscious  control  of  the  birth 
rate  in  his  own  race,  the  precedent  thus  given  by  blind  natural 
forces  ? 

Nor  is  it  unimportant  in  this  connection  to  observe  that  in 
the  human  race  the  chances  are  against  any  particular  act  of 


NEOMALTHUSIAXISM.  115 

sexual  intercourse  proving  fruitful.  As  if  to  demonstrate  that 
parentage  is  not  the  only  aspect  of  sexuality,  nature's  rule  for 
man,  or  at  least  for  highly  developed,  civilized  man,  seems  to 
be,  much  love  for  a  little  procreation. 

The  writer  of  No.  xviii  in  the  White  Cross  series  quotes 
a  passage  from  'Geddes  and  Thomson's  Evolution  of  Sex,  which 
he  uses  to  support  his  wholesale  condemnation  of  neomalthu- 
sian  methods.  It  is  misleading  to  separate  the  passage  from 
its  context  in  this  way.  The  argument  of  the  chapter  whence 
the  extract  is  taken  does  not  lead  to  any  such  wholesale  con- 
demnation. It  recognizes  the  general  importance  of  the  neo- 
malthusian  position,  and  pleads  for  a  cautious  criticism  of  the 
neomalthusian  proposals.  The  particular  passage  in  question 
is  directed  against  the  rash  and  licentious  use  of  preventives. 
The  writers  urge  strongly  that  sexual  temperance  is  an  essen- 
tial, indeed  the  most  important,  factor  in  the  regulation  of  the 
birth  rate ;  that  any  use  of  artificial  means  by  married  people 
without  the  ethical  co-operation  of  this  higher  factor  would 
be  dangerous  and  wrong,  but  their  reasoning  justifies  the  infer- 
ence that  where  the  necessity  for  temperance  and  moral  regula- 
tion is  recognized,  the  artificial  check  may,  in  some  cases, 
become  a  legitimate  aid  to  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  birth 
rate  control. 

The  principle  that  coition  may  be  justifiable  apart  from 
procreation  may  be  considered  proved  for  certain  recorded 
cases  in  which  not  only  potcntia  gencrandi  was  known  to  be 
absent  in  one  of  the  parties  to  the  marriage,  before  the  mar- 
riage was  contracted,  but  even  poteiitia  ccriindi  could  be  exer- 
cised only  under  peculiar  conditions.  Such  an  absence  of 
power  might  be  due  to  a  malformation  of  the  genitals,  as  in  the 
case  cited  by  Ultzmann,  and  might  exist  along  with  a  normal 
or  even  an  unusual  degree  of  sexual  desire.  It  cannot  safely 
be  urged,  on  ethical  grounds,  that  the  sexually  imperfect,  yet 
highly  amative,  subject  should  deny  himself  marriage — sup- 
posing him  at  any  rate  capable  of  assisting  the  orgasm  in  his 
wife,  as  well  as  of  obtaining  it  himself — and   should  expose 


116  NEOMALTHUSIANISM. 

himself  to  the  temptations  of  masturbation  and  the  strain  of 
celibacy  on  account  of  his  physical  unfitness  for  procreation.^ 

These  cases  indirectly  involve  an  ethical  point  which 
brings  them  into  connection  with  the  problem  of  neomalthu- 
sianism.  Only  by  a  narrow  and  doubtful  view  of  the  matter 
can  we  assert  that  this  principle  may  never  be  extended  to 
cover  cases  other  than  those  of  actual  sexual  imperfection; 
cases,  namely,  where  procreation,  though  not  physically  impos- 
sible, is  undesirable  on  account  of  the  delicacy  of  some  other 
part  of  the  organism,  or  for  some  other  urgent  reason. 

Ellis's  argument  is  of  doubtful  validity  in  the  two  sentences  in 
which  he  places  preventive  intercourse  involving  checks  in  the  cate- 
gory of  sexual  perversions,,  comparing  it  to  the  employment  of  con- 
tact between  parts  of  the  body  other  than  the  distinctively  sexual,  for 
the  purpose  of  producing  detumescence.  (See  Havelock  Ellis,  Studies, 
iv,  p.  20.)  For  if  A  (an  organ  of  the  human  body,  not  one  of  the 
sexual  organs)  intended  to  produce  only  B  (tumescence),  produces 
not  only  B,  but  something  further,  C  (detumescence),  that  is  per- 
version, or  at  least  extension  of  function.  But  D  (a  sexual  organ) 
is  intended  to  produce,  and  does  produce  C,  and  also  E  (conjugation), 
the  primary  result  of  C.  The  fact  that  it  is  not  also  used  to  produce 
F  (fecundation),  a  normal,  yet  not  primary  or  inevitable  result  of  C, 
involves  limitation  of  function;  and  this  fact  can  scarcely  be  classed 
with  sexual  perversions  of  the  former  group. 

A  discussion  of  the  different  methods  of  prevention  will 
be  found  in  Dr.  Lyman  Sperry's  popular  medical  work,  Confi- 
dential Talks  Between  Husband  and  Wife,  p.  146fif.  Some  of 
these  methods  are  physically  and  morally  dangerous.  Dr. 
Sperry  suggests  no  one  method  which  is  at  once  certain  and 
harmless  in  its  operation. 

The  theory  of  continence  for  a  part  of  the  month,  under 
medical  instruction,  goes  some  way  toward  giving  society  the 
relief  it  requires  in  regard  to  marriage  and  parentage.     Little 


8  Blumreich,  while  regarding  procreation  as  the  main  object  of 
marriage,  presents,  in  regard  to  the  marriage  of  the  sexually  imperfect, 
a  conclusion  similar  to  the  one  in  the  text.  (See  Senator  and 
Kaminer,  op.  cit.,  p.  797.) 


NEOMALTHUSIANISM.  117 

if  any  exception  can  be  taken  to  this  theory  on  ethical  grounds, 
for  copulation,  when  thus  regulated,  though  denied  one  of  its 
proper  and  natural  ends,  viz.,  procreation,  fulfills  its  other  pur- 
pose, that  of  intensifying  the  mutual  afifection  of  man  and 
woman.  Nor  does  this  theory  involve  any  direct  or  obviously 
pernicious  tampering  with  nature,  as  the  use  of  artificial  checks 
often  does. 

But  it  is  open  to  two  considerable  objections: 
First,  it  is  not,  as  is  well  known,  certain  in  its  operation. 
It  is  not  an  established  fact  that  every  woman  has  a  sterile 
period  in  the  month ;  some  appear  to  be  almost  constantly  able 
to  conceive.  Secondly,  as  stated  in  Dr.  Sperry's  handbook — 
though  his  statement  does  not  claim  to  be  final — it  seems  fre- 
quently to  require  too  much  of  human  nature.  The  sterile 
periods,  according  to  this  writer,  "extend  from  about  the 
twelfth  or  fourteenth  day  after  the  cessation  of  the  menstrual 
flow  to  a  day  or  so  preceding  the  next  menstruation.  .  . 
There  are  approximately  about  ten  or  twelve  days  each  month 
during  which  the  woman  is  not  likely  to  conceive."  In  the 
doctor's  opinion  "these  sterile  days  during  each  month  furnish 
all  the  opportunity  that  any  reasonable  couple  can  demand  for 
sexual  indulgence.  A  man  who  cannot,  or  will  not,  accommo- 
date himself  to  such  conditions,  when  necessary,  is  so  brutal 
a  sex  glutton  that  no  woman  ought  to  be  required  to  live  with 
him."9 

Dr.  Sperry  at  this  point  appears  to  the  present  writer  to 
overstrain  the  theory  under  consideration.  In  the  five  or  six 
first  years  of  married  life,  at  any  rate,  many  husbands,  and 
possibly  some  wives,  however  pure  and  temperate  their  inten- 
tion, would  probably  find  a  restriction  involving  continence 
for  sixteen  or  eighteen  days  out  of  each  month  intolerable  and 
impracticable.  The  physical  conditions  excitative  of  desire  in 
a  man  would  frequently  be  present  just  during  the  period  when 
continence  was  required,  for  desire  does  not  come  and  go  at 


^Husband   and  Wife,  p.    156. 


118  NEOMALTHUSL\NISM. 

a  man's  mere  will.  The  doctor  has  elsewhere  emphasized  the 
physical  harmfulness  of  prolonged  and  intense  sexual  excite- 
ment which  does  not  have  its  natural  consummation.  Such 
excitement,  it  must  be  observed,  would  frequently  be  the  in- 
evitable experience  of  at  least  the  husband  in  the  restricted 
period. 

Further,  Dr.  Sperry  in  this  part  of  his  essay  has  found  it 
convenient  to  omit  all  reference  to  the  woman's  desire,  which, 
it  should  be  noted,  manifests  itself  with  a  special  activity, 
according  to  some  authorities,  in  the  week  or  so  following  men- 
struation. The  suppression  of  desire  during  that  time,  until 
the  "sterile  period"  is  reached,  might  present  great  difficulties, 
not  merely  to  the  husband,  but  to  both  parties.  In  fine,  the 
theory  can  only  be  stated  in  Dr.  Sperry's  way  if  the  wife  is 
assumed  to  belong  to  his  third  class  of  women  (see  p.  123  of  his 
book),  and  to  be  quite  unmoved  by  carnal  feelings ;io  and  if 


10  The  controversy  among  medical  scientists  as  to  the  average 
force  of  sexual  passion  in  women  is  still  undecided.  Fiirbringer  refers 
to  the  opinion  of  a  lady  doctor,  J.  Elberskirchen,  who  considers  that 
desire  is  equally  powerful  in  both  sexes.  But  his  own  view,  in  sup- 
port of  which  he  gives  other  opinions,  is  that  a  certain  disparity 
exists.  (Senator  and  Kaminer,  vol.  i,  p.  217.)  Gemelli  (op.  cit.,  p. 
23)  on  physiological  grounds  credits  the  female  organism  with  great 
capacities  of  sexual  excitement,  and  implies  that  many  women  ex- 
perience it.  None  the  less,  he  remarks  on  the  slowness  with  which 
desire  asserts  itself  in  women,  comparatively  with  its  action  in  men; 
and  admits  the  existence  of  many  sexually  indiflferent  or  frigid 
women.  Rohleder  agrees  with  Elberskirchen  (Die  Neue  Gen.,  Jahrg. 
7,  Heft.  7,  p.  268).  Havelock  Ellis  has  made  a  lengthy  study  of  the 
question  (Studies,  vol.  iii,  2d  ed.,  pp.  192ff.),  which  leads  him  to  con- 
clude that  whereas  there  was  formerly  a  tendency  to  exaggerate  the 
amativeness  of  women,  now,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  underestimated. 
He  has  presented  some  specimen  expressions  of  the  ancient  and 
medieval  belief,  to  which  reference  wasj  made  in  a  former  chapter,  in 
women's  sexual  sensitiveness  and  excitability.  Yet  it  must  be  men- 
tioned that  classical  and  medieval  allusions  of  another  kind  to 
women's  sexuality  are  not  wholly  wanting.  Horace,  for  example, 
speaks  (Epod.  v,  41)  of  a  wanton  woman  as  mascida  libidinis,  imply- 
ing  that   women    in   general    are   less   lustful   than   men ;    and   Aquinas 


NEOMALTHUSIANISM.  119 

tlie  physical  factors  in  the  husband's  amorous  inclination  be 
ignored  and  the  inclination  falsely  referred  to  some  depravity 
in  his  will. 

The  "periodic  continence"  theory,  then,  is  practical  and 
acceptable  rather  in  reference  to  the  limitation  of  the  family 
than  to  the  total  avoidance  of  procreation.  In  the  five  or  six 
first  years  of  wedlock  it  would  be  found  to  involve  an  imprac- 
ticable discipline,  in  probably  the  majority  of  cases,  but  it  is 
possible — we  can  hardly  say  more — that  it  could  be  translated 
more  fully  into  practice  as  the  years  go  on.  For  the  natural 
tendency  to  marriage,  whenever  it  is  soberly  and  religiously 
undertaken,  is  to  limit  and  moderate  desire.  Hence,  after  a 
marriage  has  been  fruitful  to  the  extent  of  four  or  five  children, 
the  number  requisite  to  the  proper  maintenance  of  the  nation's 
welfare,  husband  and  wife  might  then  be  able,  as  they  would 
doubtless  frequently  be  willing,  to  limit  themselves  to  acts  of 
intercourse  timed  so  as  to  escape  procreation.  Even  so,  how- 
ever, there  will  be  cases  in  which  such  abstinence  cannot  be 
relied  on  to  secure  this  result. 

It  belongs,  however,  to  medical  science  to  recommend 
adequate  methods  where  needed,  and  the  proper  course  for  a 
married  couple  to  whom  the  need  of  an  artificial  check  has 
become  imperative,  is  to  act  on  Dr.  Sperry's  advice  to  refer 
their  special  case  to  a  thoroughly  competent  and  careful 
physician. 

Medical  science  has  hesitated  long  ahont  putting  forward  any 
method  of  prevention  which  is  at  once  hygienically  unobjectionable 
and  reliable  for  its  own  purpose.  In  Senator  and  Kaminer,  op.  cit., 
Fiirbringer  selects  the  "safe"  or  "condom"  as  the  most  satisfactory 
means. 11  Kossmann  somewhat  modifies  this  judgment.  Kaminer 
approves  of  condomatic  coitus  in  tuberculous  individuals,  where  the 
genital    organs   themselves    are   affected.      The   main,    if   not    the    only 


refers  to  the  frigidity  of  women  as  if  at  least  the  observant  and 
thoughtful  among  his  contemporaries  recognized  it  as  decidedly  as 
moderns   do    (Tert.   Part.   Suppl.   Sum.   Theol.,  qu.  Iviii,  art.  i,  6). 

'1  1    believe  that  the   preponderance  of   medical   opinion   assents. 
(See  Bloch,  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time.  pp.  378f.,  704.) 


120  NEOMALTHUSIANISM. 

hygienic  objection  which  these  writers  have  to  the  condom — for  as  to 
its  reHableness  as  a  means  of  prevention,  that  can  be  insured,  accord- 
ing to  Fiirbringer,  by  proper  construction — is  that  in  some  cases  its 
use  may  prove  injurious  by  unduly  delaying  the  consummation  of  the 
sexual  act.  If  the  suggestion  of  Sperry,  that  the  female  organs  would 
sufifer  from  want  of  contact  with  the  semen  of  the  male,  be  valid,  it  is 
curious  that  it  does  not  occupy  an  important  place  in  these  scientific 
discussions.  These  recent  and  able  opinions,  in  fact,  lend  little  if  any 
support  to  the  alarmist  view  of  Sperry,  who  seems  to  regard  satyriasis 
and  nymphomania  as  the  consequences  which  may  be  expected  to  fol- 
low the  use  of  the  condom.  The  condom,  if  otherwise  satisfactory, 
compares  favorably  with  the  pessary  on  the  ground  of  simplicity, 
cleanliness,  and,  not  least,  chivalry,  the  onus  of  employing  the  pre- 
ventive falling  mainly  on  the  man. 

Fiirbringer  and  Kossmann  regard  interrupted  intercourse  on  the 
whole  unfavorably;  the  latter  especially  warns  against  the  risk  of  in- 
ducing nervous  conditions  to  the  wife  by  preventing  the  completion  of 
her  orgasm.  But  they  admit  that  the  practice  is  frequently  followed 
without  apparent  detriment  to  either  male  or  female.  Von  Leyden 
and  Wolff  condemn  it  absolutely,  as  tending  to  produce  cardiac  affec- 
tions in  the  woman.     Nystrom   disapproves   of   it.12 

C.  A.  Ewald,  who  holds  that  artificial  prevention  is  not  infre- 
quently responsible  for  nervous  affections  of  the  digestive  functions, 
considers  that  this  result  is  due  largely  to  the  sexual  excess  which  is 
a  too  frequent,  but,  as  is  here  suggested,  not  an  inevitable  accompani- 
ment of  neomalthusian  methods.^^ 

After  allowing  fully  for  the  real  difficulties  and  perplexi- 
ties of  society  in  the  matter  of  procreation,  we  cannot  be  too 
earnest  or  emphatic  in  exposing  the  dangers  involved  in  the 
reckless  application  of  the  neomalthusian  doctrine.  Some  of 
the  exponents  of  this  doctrine  take  quite  insufficient  account 
of  the  possible  degeneration  of  the  moral  sense  in  regard  to 
the  sexual  relation  amid  the  conditions  of  vastly  increased 
freedom  and  indulgence  which  that  doctrine  would  allow,  of 
the  aversion  to  the  endurance  of  hardship,  the  lack  of  self- 
control,  and  the  consequent  declension  from  lofty  standards  of 


1-  Das  Geschlechtsleben  und  seine  Gesetze,  qu.  by  H.  Ellis, 
Studies,  vol.  iii   (new  ed.),  p.  202. 

13  Senator  and  Kaminer:  Op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  pp.  234,  8,  9;  254;  351; 
392;  409. 


NEOMALTHUSIANISM.  121 

self-sacrificing  conduct,  which  would  thus  be  engendered. 
Much  uncertainty  as  yet  surrounds  even  the  theoretic  possi- 
bility of  breeding  gentle,  pure  and  attractive  natures  by  arti- 
ficially regulating  procreation  among  humankind — a  theory 
which  the  author  of  Scientific  Meliorism  tries  to  establish ;  but 
even  granting  this  possibility,  with  what  degree  of  confidence 
can  it  be  expected  that  such  natures  would  develop  in  corre- 
spondence with  the  start  thus  given  them — that  mere  care  in 
breeding  would  maintain  them  on  a  high  moral  level,  in  the 
absence  of  the  moral  discipline  of  hard  social  conditions? 
Would  not  multitudes  abuse  the  indulgentia  (nay,  in  the  face 
of  facts,  one  must  say.  Do  they  not ?),!'*  knowing  that  part  at 
least  of  the  temporal  inconveniences  consequent  on  such  abuse 
need  no  longer  be  feared?  In  the  long  run,  it  would  surely 
prove  the  reverse  of  a  boon  to  society  at  large  to  have  recog- 
nized access  to  an  intense  pleasure  without  running  any  risk 
of  incurring  the  chastening  responsibilities  which  God,  as  a 
safeguard  against  license,  has  attached  to  it. 

Regarding  the  matter  broadly,  we  observe  that  in  the  pres- 
ent order  of  things,  the  majority  of  people  are  called  upon,  by 
the  wisdom  of  Providence,  to  face  some  kind  of  struggle  and 
anxiety,  and  whatever  may  be  the  apparent  justice  of  it,  to  see 
others  involved  along  with  them  in  the  same  conflict. ^^  Escape 
from  the  troubles  and  strain  of  celibacy  can,  in  the  general 
rule,  only  be  lawfully  bought  at  a  price — the  price  of  under- 
taking the  responsibility  of  matrimony  and  possible  anxiety  of 
parentage.  If  in  our  days  marriage  is  increasingly  difficult, 
yet  morally  as  needful  as  ever,  people  should  consider  what 


!■*  It  is  in  the  nature  of  the  case  impossible  to  determine  to  what 
extent  artificial  birth  control  is  practised;  but  some  students,  with 
very  large  opportunities  of  inquiring  into  the  matter,  estimate  it  as 
considerable  (c/'.  J.  W.  Taylor  in  The  Nineteenth  Century  and  After, 
1906). 

i'""  I  may  refer  here  to  some  profound  and  beautiful  remarks  on 
the  mystery  of  pain,  quoted  in  Adveniat  Regninn  Tuum  (Milan, 
1912),    p.   423. 


122  NEOMALTHUSIANISM. 

legitimate  ways  there  may  be  of  making  it  easier  of  access.  To 
tamper  with  nature's  processes  will  not,  unless  in  exceptional 
circumstances,  be  one  of  these  ways.  But  there  are  many  fic- 
titious wants  and  obligations  in  the  household  life  of  certain 
classes  which  might  resolutely  be  curtailed  by  people  who  find 
marriage  necessary  to  their  health  and  happiness,  yet  are  of 
straitened  means.  A  good  deal  might  be  done  in  modern  society 
in  this  direction,  and  any  right  movement — possibly  aided  by 
legislation — which  by  lightening  the  pressure  of  social  condi- 
tions and  introducing  inexpensive  modes  of  living  and  methods 
of  education,  helps  toward  the  attainment  of  this  end,  renders 
an  inestimable  service  to  the  twin  causes  of  morality  and  of 
health.  Although  we  look  to  the  Bible  in  vain  for  a  definitive 
solution  of  certain  modern  difficulties  in  the  sphere  of  sexual 
morality,  it  will  be  found  that  a  careful,  devout  study  of  the 
general  moral  and  religious  principles  laid  down  therein  will 
help  the  individual  conscience  to  the  decision  of  such  questions 
as  may  affect  itself. 

"Ye  have  been  called,"  says  St.  Paul  to  the  Christian 
Society,  "for  freedom;  only  use  not  your  freedom  for  an  occa- 
sion to  the  flesh"  (Gal.  5:  13). i^  Viewed  in  the  light  of  the 
principle  of  Christian  freedom,  it  becomes  apparent  that  the 
answer  to  a  question  of  conscience — in  the  region  of  sexual 
morality  as  elsewhere — may  not  be  the  same  in  every  case.  We 
are  not  brought  face  to  face  in  the  Bible  with  any  explicit  or 
uncompromising  prohibition  of  the  artificial  prevention  of  con- 
ception. It  is  true  that  the  whole  tenor  of  the  Scriptural  teach- 
ing is  strongly  against  a  licentious  and  wanton  use  of  this 
practice.  Such  a  use  would  imply  a  neglect  of  the  duty  of  self- 
sacrifice  and  a  false  development  of  freedom.  It  cannot  be  too 
carefully  and  conscientiously  considered  whether  the  circum- 
stances  do   really  justify  the   use  of   freedom   for  a   purpose 


16  Zockler's  comment  brings  out  the  point  of  this  admonition. 
E/s  d0op,u7jj'  TTj  a-apKi,  "as  an  occasion  for  the  increasing  domination 
(das   Herrschendwerden)    of   carnal   behavior   and   practices." 


NEOMALTHUSIANISM.  123 

which  human  selfishness  only  too  readily  perverts  to  corrupt 
and  abominable  ends. 

Evidence  gathered  some  years  ago  by  a  commission  in 
New  Zealand  allowed  them  to  declare  the  prevalence  of  pre- 
vention in  the  society  of  New  Zealand,  and  in  view  of  this  they 
made  the  following  recommendations  to  the  New  Zealand 
Government,  in  the  hope  of  their  eventually  becoming  law^**": 

1.  That  the  sale  of  preventives  be  restricted  to  qualified 
chemists. 

2.  That  the  sale  of  preventives  to  any  person  under  21 
years  of  age  be  subject  to  penalty. 

3.  That  the  hawking  of  preventives  be  made  a  criminal 
ofifense. 

4.  That  the  wholesale  dealers  in  preventives,  whether  such 
preventives  are  imported  or  manufactured  within  the  colony, 
be  required  to  keep  a  register  of  their  sales. 

5.  That  any  advertisement  or  notification  of  preventives 
be  made  illegal,  except  in  trade  catalogues. 

The  existence  of  such  regulations,  however  difficult  it 
might  be  to  enforce  them  satisfactorily,  might  at  least  have  an 
educational  value,  and  in  some  measure  induce  the  members  of 
the  community  to  give  prevention  a  conscientious  consideration, 
instead  of  resorting  to  it  with  the  reckless  eagerness  which 
now  appears  to  prevail,  and  which  fills  far-sighted  people  with 
grave  alarm  for  the  future  of  the  British  Colonies. 

Some  of  the  States  of  the  North  American  Union  have 
passed  more  stringent  and  elaborate  laws  repressive  of  neo- 
malthusianism.i'''  Such  legislation  finds  its  justification  in  the 
extensive  abuse  of  the  principle  of  birth  control.  It  is  well 
that  society  should  be  armed  with  a  pow^erful  weapon,  when 
confronting  formidable  dangers.  Only  let  panic  be  avoided; 
for  that,  as  history  warns  us  by  many  an  analogy,  is  the  worst 
of  all  social  dangers.     An  indiscriminating  application  of  such 


K'^i  This  hope  has  not  yet  been  realized    (C.  Drysdale,  The  Small 
l'\'imily  System,  pp.  49f.). 

1"  O.   Bureau's  article   in   Tl   Rogo,   already  referred  to. 


124  NEOMALTHUSIANISM. 

laws  as  those  mentioned  would  be  ineffective  as  to  its  primary 
object;  for  it  would  simply  cause  the  unscrupulous  to  adopt 
those  methods  which  are  most  emphatically  discountenanced 
by  medical  science,  yet  are  beyond  the  cognizance  of  the  law. 
It  would  besides,  in  obscurantist  fashion,  check  the  progress 
of  sexual  science ;  it  would  not  solve,  but  would  merely  lay 
aside,  a  great  and  complex  question. 

Although  a  system  of  artificial  birth  control,  within  some 
such  limits  as  are  defined  above,  has  to  be  taken  account  of  as  a 
probably  legitimate  factor  in  the  solution  of  the  difficulties  sur- 
rounding the  development  of  the  sex  life  in  civilization,  yet  one 
inclines  to  distrust  such  sanguine  estimates  of  its  importance 
as  appear  in  literature  of  the  type  of  Lady  Florence  Dixie's 
Eilabelle ;  and  a  healthy  society  will  always  keep  prominently 
before  its  view  the  vigorous  and  beautiful  aspects  of  procrea- 
tion as  being  a  more  desirable  expansion  of  the  sex  life  than 
anything  which  can  be  obtained  through  the  neomalthusian 
teaching;  and  right-minded  people,  even  if  they  have  to  aban- 
don the  idea  of  family  surroundings  in  their  own  case,  will  do 
so  only  with  reluctance  and  regret.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that 
children — as  may  be  inferred  from  the  cases  cited  week  by 
week  in  a  magazine  like  the  Woman  at  Home — are  not 
seldom,  owing  to  the  fussiness  or  unkindness  of  one  of  the 
parents,  the  rock  on  which  the  happiness  of  the  marriage  union 
is  wrecked,  but  more  usually  they  are  one  of  the  chief  factors 
in  cementing  that  union  and  rendering  it  full  of  permanent 
happiness  and  peace.  Family  life  may  be  viewed  in  its  aspect 
of  beauty,  as  has  been  appealingly  portrayed  by  Carolus  Duran 
in  his  picture  En  Famille,  or  in  its  aspect  of  robust  strength 
and  vigor,  which  Zola  has  so  well  described. 

A  general  discussion  of  the  causes  of  diminution  in  the 
birth  rate  is  beyond  the  scope  of  the  present  chapter,  which 
has  dealt  mainly  with  the  ethical  aspects  of  neomalthusianism. 
A  few  remarks  are  all  that  can  be  made. 

It  is  probable  that  an  abundant  food  supply  and  the  gen- 
eral   improvement    of    economic   conditions   tend    to    diminish 


NEOMALTHUSIANISM.  125 

fertility ;  or,  again,  the  effort  of  rising  in  the  social  scale  necessi- 
tates the  raising  of  the  age  for  marriage  and  causes  nerve- 
strain  in  the  individual  worker.  Not  all  have  a  stock  of  native 
energy  sufficient  at  once  for  constant  mental  work  and  impera- 
tive social  duties,  and  for  vigorous  procreation  as  well.  Success 
in  life's  struggle  in  the  conditions  of  modern  civilization  sug- 
gests the  expectation  of  a  diminution  in  the  power  of  this 
latter  function. 

But  however  the  causes  of  a  declining  birth  rate  may  be 
apportioned,  many  writers  adduce  strong  reasons  for  refusing 
to  see  in  this  phenomenon  a  subject  of  pessimism.  It  is  pointed 
out  that  the  crude  birth  rate  of  a  community  is  by  no  means 
the  gauge  of  its  expansion  or  the  leading  symptom  of  its  prog- 
ress. The  most  prolific  nations  have  also  the  highest  death 
rate,  especially  among  infants.  The  rate  of  increase  in  popu- 
lation is  more  rapid  in  some  countries  where  the  birth  rate  is 
declining  than  in  some  others  where  it  is  rising ;  and  since  most 
European  nations  belong  to  the  former  and  most  Asiatic 
nations  to  the  latter  class,  the  "yellow  menace,"  of  which  so 
much  has  been  made,  becomes  less  formidable. ^^  It  is,  more- 
over, far  from  being  the  case  that  a  smaller  population  neces- 
sarily succumbs  to  a  larger,  or  takes  a  position  inferior  to  it, 
in  politics  or  in  any  other  way, — even  where  other  things,  as 
qualities  and  resources,  are  equal.  History  demonstrates,  by 
many  striking  examples,  the  contrary  to  this.  Napoleon  was 
wrong  when  he  said  that  fifteen  millions  of  people  must  give 
way  before  forty  millions. 

Among  the  protests  against  panic  in  connection  with  the 
birth  rate,  we  may  select  for  notice  a  vigorous  and  timely  one 
by  W.  R.  Inge,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  He  points  out 
that  a  rapid  increase  of  population  cannot  be  unreservedly 
approved  on  eugenic  principles.  It  may,  on  the  contrary,  intro- 
duce a  preponderance  of  dysgenic  factors  into  the  evolutionary 


IS  Cp.    the    articles    by    Havelock    Ellis    and    C.    Drysdale    in    Die 
Neue   Gen.,  Jahrg.  8,   Heft  9. 


126  iXEOMALTHUSIANISM. 

process.  Many  of  the  old  objections  to  rapid  increase  of  popu- 
lation still  hold  good.  The  motives  of  the  growing  panic, 
arising  as  they  do  from  excessive  militarism  or  selfish  capital- 
ism and  industrialism,  are  antisocial.  The  Dean  believes  "that 
the  fall  in  the  birth  rate  has  been  an  unmixed  benefit  for  the 
working-class  and  has,  perhaps,  saved  the  country  from  revolu- 
tion." Without  committing  himself  to  the  approval  of  neomal- 
thusian  methods,  he  admits  that  the  Malthusian  League  "at 
least  see  where  the  shoe  pinches. "^^ 

A  physician,  writing  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette — abridged  in 
The  Rapid  Review  for  December,  1905 — predicts  that  the 
general  effect  of  neomalthusianism  will  be  to  compensate  for 
the  diminution  of  the  quantity  of  births  by  raising  the  average 
quality.  The  productiveness  of  the  classes  highest  in  the  social 
scale  tends  to  diminish  in  respect  of  either  quantity  or  quality, 
owing  to  overapproximation  of  the  propagating  types — in  the 
case  of  old  feudal  families — and  in  other  cases  to  the  fact 
already  referred  to,  that  the  nerve-strain  presupposed  by  the 
effort  necessary  for  rising  to  a  prominent  social  position  is 
unfavorable  to  healthy  procreation. 

There  are,  finally,  many  who  take  the  view  of  birth  con- 
trol presented  in  this  chapter.i^*  y>^  Newsholme  ends  his  bro- 
chure. The  Declining  Birth  Rate,  by  remarking  that  it  does 
not  appear  possible  for  the  artificial  limitation  of  families  to 
be  pursued  on  a  large  scale  without  moral  loss  to  the  com- 
munity. Dr.  Havelock  Ellis,  in  the  tract  introducing  the  im- 
portant series  of  which  the  booklet  just  mentioned  forms  one, 
says :  "There  is  little  need  at  the  present  time  either  to  urge 
restriction  on  the  output  of  children  or  to  urge  the  absence  of 
restriction."  Dr.  Saleeby's  tract  more  emphatically  indorses 
the  views  my  studies  have  led  me  to  adopt:  "In  the  name  of 
many  of  the  best  men  and  women,"  he  says,  "in  whose  blood 
there  may  run  some  insane  taint  or  what  not,  I  protest  against 


1^  Eugenics  Review,  vol.  v,  No.  3,  pp.  261  f. 

19^  See  C.  V.  Drysdale,  The  Small  Family  System. 


NEOMALTHUSIANISM.  127 

the  notion  that  marriage  and  parenthood  are  to  be  regarded  as 
identical  because  marriage  is  primarily  for  parenthood,  or 
because  it  is  convenient  to  assume  that  they  are  so,  in  public 
discussion. "-0  Dr.  C.  A.  Mercier  expresses  himself  with  simi- 
lar balance  and  moderation  on  this  point.- ^ 

Nystrom  maintains  that  a  merely  repressive  policy  in 
regard  of  artificial  birth  control  is  inadequate  and  harmful, 
inasmuch  as  in  the  first  place  it  violates  the  rule  "abusiis  11011 
tollit  usum,"  and  in  the  second  place  it  fosters  craft,  and  indi- 
rectly abets  the  objectionable  practice  of  coitus  interruptus.^'^ 
But  I  have  met  with  more  supporting  opinions,  coming  from 
serious,  responsible  quarters,  than  I  have  been  able  to  note 
down ;  and  will  limit  myself  to  the  concluding  observation  that 
S.  Bridget,  in  the  article  cited,  dealing  with  the  problem  from 
a  Christian  point  of  view,  and  taking  account  of  the  opposition 
offered  in  Roman  moral  theology  to  birth  control,  reaches  a 
position  identical  with  my  own ;  and  is  able  to  maintain  it,  on 
the  ground  of  his  wide  practical  knowledge,  acquired  in  the 
Roman  confessional,  of  the  sex  life,  against  the  absolute  con- 
demnation which  A.  Crespi,  following  Forster,  pronounces 
upon  the  practice,  in  the  same  magazine. --^ 


20  Saleeby,  The   Methods  of   Race   Regeneration,  pp.  24f. 

21  Mercier,  Crime  and  Insanity,  p.  219. 

22  Die  Neue  Generation,  Jahrg.  7.  Heft.  10,  pp.  441ff. ;  Das 
Geschlechtsleben  und  seine  Gesetze,  8th  ed.,  p.  177;  qu.  by  Havelock 
Ellis,  Studies,  vol.  iii,  2d  ed.,  p:  202. 

23  Coenobium,  ann.  viii,  fasc.  iv,  v,  and  vi. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Sexual  Promiscuity. 

A  Definition  of  Impurity — Promiscuity — Biblical  Views  of  Pro- 
miscuity— Concubinage — Antenuptial    Relations. 

St.  Thomas  AouinasI  defines  the  sin  of  impurity  as  the 
enjoyment  of  sexual  pleasure,  not  according  to  right  reason. 
This  may  take  place  in  two  ways :  one  as  concerns  the  matter 
or  object  in  which  anyone  seeks  sexual  pleasure;  the  other,  ac- 
cording to  which  certain  appointed  conditions  are  not  observed 
in  the  use  of  the  lawful  matter.  In  other  words,  this  sin  may 
occur  by  way  of  perversion,  as  when  a  man  seeks  to  gratify  his 
desire  upon  some  object  forbidden  him  by  the  law  of  nature; 
by  way  of  lawlessness,  as  when  in  the  gratification  of  his 
desire  he  disregards  appointed  conditions,  i.e.,  the  moral  law, 
in  the  use  of  the  lawful  matter;  or  by  way  of  excess,  as  when 
he  uses  lawful  pleasure  to  an  immoderate  and  dangerous  ex- 
tent. Obviously,  perversion  and  excess,  or  lawlessness  and 
excess,  may  be  present  at  the  same  time,  and  lawlessness  (as 
here  defined)  may  coexist  with  some  degree  of  perversion. 

With  regard  to  some  forms  and  degrees  of  both  sexual 
perversion  and  sexual  excess,  the  healthy  instincts  and  normal 
moral  sense  of  humanity  experience  no  difficulty  about  cherish- 
ing a  proper  repugnance  toward  them.  We  are  not,  at  anv 
rate,  considering  them  here.  But  where  the  distinction  con- 
sists not  in  the  violation  of  a  law  of  nature  or  the  disregard  of 
another's  rights,  but  simply  in  the  infringement  of  social  obli- 
gations, the  reason  for  which  is  not  readily  discernible,  as  in 
the  case  of  intercourse  out  of  wedlock,  many  people  will  be 
disposed  to  disallow  the  use  of  the  term  lawlessness  in  such 
a  connection.     It  will  be  thought  that  the  condemnation  of 


1  Summa  Theol.,  ed.  Migne,  vol.  ii,  qu.   154,  art.  i. 

(128) 


SEXUAL    PROMISCUITY.  129 

simple  fornication,  as  enunciated  by  the  Christian  Church,  is 
arbitrary. 

At  this  point,  then,  we  may  bring  forward  the  reasons 
stated  with  such  clearness  and  power  by  Aquinas,  upon  which 
this  condemnation  is  based. ^ 

"Mortal  sin  is  all  sin  which  is  committed  directly  against 
the  life  (i-e.,  against  the  due  growth  and  expansion  of  the 
life)  of  man.  Now  simple  fornication  brings  in  an  element  of 
lawlessness  which  tends  to  the  detriment  of  the  life  of  him  who 
is  to  be  born  of  such  intercourse.  For  we  see  in  the  case  of  all 
animals  among  which  the  care  of  male  and  female  is  requisite 
for  the  bringing  up  of  the  offspring,  that  among  them  there  is 
no  casual  copulation,  but  the  approach  of  the  male  to  a  particu- 
lar female,  one  or  more,  as  is  evident  among  all  birds.  But  it 
is  otherwise  in  the  case  of  animals  among  which  the  female 
alone  is  needed  for  the  bringing  up  of  the  young,  for  among 
these  there  is  a  casual  copulation,  as  is  evident  among  dogs  and 
suchlike  animals. 

"Now  it  is  obvious  that  to  the  bringing  up  of  man  is 
requisite  not  only  the  care  of  the  mother  by  whom  he  is  fed. 
but  to  an  even  greater  extent  that  of  the  father  by  whoin  he 
must  be  instructed  and  defended,  and  caused  to  progress  in 
matters  that  affect  his  inward  as  well  as  his  outward  well- 
being.  Hence  it  is  against  the  nature  of  man  to  indulge  in  pro- 
miscuous intercourse,  but  the  male  must  have  intercourse  with 
a  chosen  female,  with  a  view  to  cohabiting  with  her,  not  for  a 
short  space,  but  for  a  long  time,  or  even  for  their  lives.  This 
is  the  cause  that  there  is  naturally  among  the  males  of  the 
human  species  anxiety  whether  a  man's  reputed  offspring  is 
really  his,  because  upon  them  is  incumbent  the  duty  of  bring- 
ing up  offspring.  And  there  would  be  no  certainty  on  this 
point  if  promiscuity  were  the  rule. 

"Now  this  selection  of  a  particular  woman  is  called  matri- 
mony, and  on  this  account  it  is  said  to  stand  on  a  basis  of 


~  Op.  cit.,  vol.  iii,  qu.  154,  art.  ii. 

9 


130  SEXUAL    PROMISCUITY. 

natural  law.  But  because  sexual  intercourse  is  ordained  with 
a  view  to  the  common  good  of  the  whole  human  race,  and 
because  it  falls  within  the  province  of  law  to  determine  things 
which  pertain  to  the  common  good,  it  follows  that  the  union 
of  the  man  with  the  woman,  which  is  called  matrimony,  should 
be  regulated  by  some  law. 

"Consequently,  since  fornication  is  promiscuous  inter- 
course, inasmuch  as  it  exists  beside  and  beyond  matrimony,  it 
is  opposed  to  a  good,  viz.,  the  bringing  up  of  offspring,  and, 
therefore,  it  is  mortal  sin.  Nor  does  it  make  any  difference 
if  any  one  knowing  a  woman  by  fornication  makes  sufficient 
provision  for  the  bringing  up  of  the  oft'spring,  because  what- 
ever falls  under  the  regulation  of  law  is  judged  according  to 
its  common  method  of  occurring,  and  not  according  to  circum- 
stances which  may  attend  it  fortuitously." 

Viewed  in  the  light  of  the  most  recent  and  careful  research 
into  the  origins  of  sexual  morality,  the  great  medieval  teacher's 
statement  of  the  case  against  casual  union  retains  its  worth  and 
force.  Westermarck,  in  the  work  already  cited,  has  shown  by 
an  accumulation  of  evidence  which  invests  his  case  with  a 
high  degree  of  probability,  that  man's  sexual  instinct  has 
normally  found  its  gratification,  in  more  or  less  durable 
monogamic  unions,  not  in  promiscuous  intercourse. 

According  to  the  nature  of  things,  then,  the  practice  of 
fornication,  whether  prostitution  or  promiscuity  of  a  physically 
healthier  kind,  is  abnormal.  When  its  history  is  traced,  it  does 
not  establish  a  claim  to  a  natural  and  legitimate  existence  in 
human  society.-^ 

Exponents  of  laxer  views  on  sex  relations  sometimes  claim 
to  derive  a  measure  of  support  from  the  fact  that  in  passages 
of  Holy  Scripture  which  reflect  the  morals  of  remote  and 
obscure  stages  of  social  evolution,  fornication  is  not  treated 
expressly  as  a  moral  offense.     It  becomes,  therefore,  incum- 


3  See  Additional  Note  A  on   Primitive  Marriage ;   and  c[>.   Forel, 
op.  cif.,  p.  155. 


SEXUAL   PROMISCUITY.  131 

bent  upon  us  at  this  stage  to  review  the  ideas  of  the  BibHcal 
writers  respecting  extra-conjugal  sex  relations.  The  moral 
teaching  of  a  BibHcal  document  stands  in  a  setting  of  con- 
temporary moral  ideas.  If  these  are  in  Divinely  recognized 
accord  with  the  true  progress  of  human  evolution,  the 
Scriptural  teaching  embodies  and  sanctions  them;  if  they  are 
adverse  to  this  progress,  it  repudiates  and  condemns  them. 
Sometimes  the  Biblical  document  reflects  ideas  which  later 
inspired  writers  disallow ;  in  this  case  the  older  writer  has  had 
no  deeper  insight  into  the  matter  in  question  than  his  contem- 
poraries— to  use  the  language  of  religion,  we  might  say  that 
the  Divine  Will  on  that  point  has  not  been  declared  to  him. 
Thus,  if  we  find  concubinage  or  antenuptial  intercourse  re- 
ferred to  in  the  Old  Testament  without  any  clear  mark  of 
moral  condemnation,  we  can  only  infer  that  it  was  not  vouch- 
safed to  the  early  composer  or  the  primitive  lawgiver  to  see 
further  into  the  ethics  of  the  matter  than  other  moralists  of 
his  time.  None  the  less,  the  practice  in  question  may  stand 
condemned  explicitly  by  some  later  writer  taking  a  wider  view 
of  life  and  possessed  of  a  deeper  insight  into  ethical  condi- 
tions ;  or  implicitly  by  comparison  with  the  principles  ultimately 
made  manifest,  in  the  Bible,  regarded  as  a  whole,  as  the  true 
basis  of  the  ethics  of  sex. 

Now  the  moral  systems  of  most  heathen  nations, *  as  well 
as  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  moral  systems,  uphold  the  insti- 
tution of  marriage  as  a  necessary  factor  in  social  welfare. 
They  place  marriage  on  a  higher  footing  than  even  the  forms 
of  concubinage  most  nearly  resembling  it.  Marriage  differs 
from  hetairism,  or  the  temporary  cohabitation  of  a  man  and  a 

4  As  a  result  of  his  survey  of  primitive  ideas  on  sex,  Crawley 
concludes  (The  Mystic  Rose,  p.  147)  that  the  "rights"  of  the  in- 
dividual in  property,  marriage,  and  everything  else,  were  never  more 
clearly  defined  than  by  primitive  man.  It  is  true,  at  quite  early 
stages  of  human  development,  the  strictness  of  these  individualistic 
notions  becomes  relaxed ;  yet  they  retain  the  prior  claim  to  be  the 
right  point  of  departure  from  which  to  commence  a  study  of  the  ethic 
of  marriage. 


132  SEXUAL   PROMISCUITY. 

woman  by  private  mutual  consent,  in  that  the  consent  given  in 
marriage  is  referable  to  an  objective  standard  of  obligation; 
such  being,  according  to  Christian  ethics,  the  ideal  of  mono- 
gamic  indissolubility.  Hetairism  has  no  such  objective 
standard. 

It  differs  more  markedly  still  from  promiscuous  sex  rela- 
tions. Let  us  consider  further,  from  the  Biblical  writings,  why 
is  the  refusal  of  a  man  and  woman  to  initiate  their  sexual 
relations  by  this  contract  an  offense  against  morality?  What 
detriment  to  social  or  to  individual  welfare  does  it  involve  in 
th£  view  of  Biblical  writers? 

Among  the  Semites,  the  matriarchate,  which  favors  free- 
dom of  sexual  choice  for  women,  is  the  earliest  discernible 
social  system ;  and  it  has  been  observed  before  now,  as  one 
of  the  bad  consequences  of  this  fact,  that  promiscuity  of 
various  kinds  found  there  a  congenial  soil.^  A  sort  of  tem- 
porary cohabitation  was  not  merely  tolerated,  but  was  regarded 
as  a  lower  form  of  marriage — the  mota'a  marriage  of  the 
Arabs.  Promiscuous  sexual  relations  of  a  lower  grade  were 
encouraged  by  the  custom  of  religious  prostitution,  which  the 
great  Semitic  scholar  just  cited  describes  as  "an  element  of 
pollution ;  a  blacker  spot  even  in  the  darkness  of  heathenism." 
In  more  or  less  sharply  defined  contrast,  these  sexual  unions 
stood  over  against  the  monogamic  idea  which  even  in  a  setting 
of  matriarchal  customs  was  affirmed  as  primitive  by  the 
Jahwistic  revelation. 

Accordingly,  Hebrew  legislation  repressed  religious  prosti- 
tution with  severe  enactments.^  Casual  seduction  it  disallowed 
and  penalized  to  the  extent  of  making  subsequent  marriage 
with  the  woman— or  a  pecuniary  equivalent  for  marriage — 
incumbent  on  the  seducer.  The  view  of  fornication  as  a  moral 
offense  against  God  does  not  come  out  here  as  distinctly  as  in 
modern  ethical  thought ;  such  a  conception  is  as  yet  latent  and 


5  W.  R.  Smith,  Kinship,  chs.  v,  vi. 

6  As    we    may    infer    from    Gen.    38:24,    Lev.    21:9,    though    no 
punishment  is  specified  for  this  offense  in  Lev.   19 :  29,  Deut.  23 :  17. 


SEXUAL    PROMISCUITY.  133 

undeveloped,  though  the  germ  of  it  has  already  come  into 
being.  The  act  may  be  compounded  for  in  the  manner  stated, 
but  it  appears  as  an  ofifense  against  the  honor  and  welfare  of 
the  girl's  household ;  and  in  Deuteronomy,  where  some  degree 
of  force  seems  to  accompany  the  seduction,  as  an  offense 
against  her  womanhood. 

The  gradual  superseding  of  the  matriarchal  system  in 
Israel  by  the  patriarchal  gave  prominence  to  some  special  con- 
siderations. One  of  the  elements  of  wrong  in  the  casual  union 
is  that  it  deprives  a  brother  man  of  a  virgin  wife.  True,  the 
value  set  upon  virginity  in  his  bride  by  primitive  man  differed 
not  in  kind,  but  in  degree,  from  his  estimate  of  all  property. 
He  preferred  a  whole  fruit  to  a  half-eaten  one.  Similarly,  his 
sexual  instinct,  orientated  toward  monogamy,  made  him 
desire  to  be  the  first  and  only  possessor  of  the  person  and 
affections  of  his  wife.  Thus  the  man  who  stepped  in  before 
his  fellow  and  took  away  the  virginity  of  the  woman  who  might 
have  become  the  latter's  wife  was  thought  of  as  having 
offended  primarily  against  the  rights,  existing  actually  or  in 
idea,  of  his  brother  man.  A  partial,  and  yet,  as  far  as  it  goes, 
a  true  view  of  the  iniquity  of  fornication,  a  view  indorsed  by 
the  New  Testament  and  finding  expression  in  the  teaching  of 
St.  Paul.'^ 

Then,  as  a  woman's  personal  right  to  the  conservation  and 
due  development  of  her  sexual  nature  comes  again  into  view, 
the  conception  is  formed  that  the  casual  union  is  an  offense 
against  her  womanhood — an  idea  which  came  into  existence 
in  very  early  times  wherever  force  was  used  by  the  seducer.'*^ 

The  higher  considerations,  that  fornication  is  a  breach  of 
the  Divine  will  (which  had  been  thought  by  a  large  portion  of 
mankind  to  approve  and  even  to  demand  it),  and  consequently, 
that  it  is  a  sin  against  a  man's  own  body,  preventing  its  sancti- 
fication  by  the  indwelling  God,  were  possible  only  to  a  more 


'''  I  Thess.  4 :  6. 

^  This    idea    is    present    in    the    Hebrew    phrase    "to    humble    a 
woman"  (Piel  of  'ariah,  Gen.  34:2,  and  passim). 


134  ;         SEXUAL   PROMISCUITY. 

developed  and  enlightened  moral  sense.  St.  Paul  arrives  at 
them  by  a  process  of  spiritual  reasoning,  and  thus  finally  and 
conclusively  shows  casual  union  to  be  a  misdirection  of  the 
sexual  nature,  both  for  man  and  for  woman. ^ 

Neither  in  the  New  Testament  in  general,  nor  in  the 
Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  the  writer  who  deals  most  with  the  subject 
under  consideration,  do  we  find  any  attempt  to  place  hetairism 
on  a  different  moral  footing  from  prostitution.  It  is  histori- 
cally probable  that  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament  had 
not  got  before  them  any  general  manifestation  of  hetairism  in 
its  best  aspects,  such  as  we  find  in  the  stronger  and  purer  days 
of  Greek  and  Roman  life.  Hetairism  as  an  expression  of  the 
sex  life  in  humanity  had  failed;  it  had  proved  too  unstable  to 
become  the  foundation  of  sexual  morality  within  a  community. 
The  meretrix  of  Terence's  plays  had  not  raised  the  common 
harlots  of  the  town ;  rather,  she  had  descended  to  their  level. 

It  is  not  indeed  improbable,  as  will  be  shown  farther  on, 
that  the  morality  of  hetairism  came  before  St.  Paul  on  one 
occasion  on  a  local  issue.  There  are  some  indications  of 
a  movement  having  taken  place  in  the  Church  in  Corinth  to 
obtain  for  this  form  of  sexual  union  the  sanction  of  Chris- 
tian opinion.  But,  as  will  be  explained  later,  this  attempt 
failed.  The  ethical  worth  of  marriage  as  against  hetairism 
was  vindicated. 

Marriage  is  universally  requisite,  for  the  reasons  above 
alleged,  as  the  sanction  of  sexual  relations.  Without  it  society 
has  no  guarantee  of  the  permanence  of  the  union.  Therefore 
sexual  relations  without  this  sanction  are  classed  in  the  New 
Testament  as  fornication  ( iropveta  ) . 

The  just  conclusion  is  that  the  Bible,  although  it  does  not 
indeed  in  every  case  accompany  the  mention  of  casual  union 
with  condemnatory  reflections,  assuredly  shows  it  to  be  at 
variance  with  the  true  law  of  man's  sexual  nature,  and  repug- 
nant to  his  enlightened  moral  sense,  to  be  no  part  of  the 
original  Divine  scheme  for  the  perfecting  of  human  good  and 
happiness. 

0  I   Cor.  6  :  18. 


SEXUAL   PROMISCUITY.  135 

Hallam  notes  that  in  Elizabethan  times,  before  the  mar- 
riage of  clergy  was  recognized  by  English  law,  certain  of  the 
clergy,  especially  of  the  Bangor  diocese,  resorted  to  concubin- 
age. But  such  concubinage,  being  entered  upon  under  episcopal 
license,  is  made  a  social  and  semi-public  matter,  and  in  so  far 
as  it  is  brought,  by  this  conditioning  and  regulation,  into  touch 
with  the  standard  of  mutual  obligation  already  premised  in 
regard  to  marriage,  it  becomes  in  reality  morally  equivalent 
to  marriage. ^^  It  was  a  revolt  of  a  body  of  men,  not  against 
Divine  law,  but  against  a  human  law,  by  which  they  were 
wrongfully  condemned  to  celibacy. 

Another  kind  of  unchastity — the  intercourse  of  engaged 
couples  who,  without  waiting  for  the  sanction  of  wedlock,  yield 
to  their  desire — cannot  be  passed  over  without  remark.^ 

Relations  before,  and  as  a  preliminary  step  to  marriage,!^ 
are  certainly  not  on  the  same  footing,  as  a  moral  ofifense,  as 
promiscuity  and  prostitution. 


If*  It  was  in  fact  widely  practised  among  the  clergy  in  pre- 
reformation  times  (art.  Concubinage,  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Eth. ; 
art.  Celibacy,  Christian,  ibid.;  Wordsworth,  The  Ministry  of  Grace, 
p.  236).  Fr.  Thurston  (art.  Celibacy,  in  The  Catholic  Encyclopaedia) 
denies,  in  opposition  to  Bishop  Wordsworth,  any  great  prevalence 
of  concubinage  among  the  clergy.  Yet  the  same  writer  immediately 
states  that  the  denunciations  of  such  unions  are  innumerable.  Would 
there  have  been  so  much  smoke  without  fire?  (Cp.  Dolonne,  Le 
Clerge  Contemporain  et  le  Celibat,  ch.  ii ;  Lea,  Sacerdotal  Celibacy, 
esp.  vol.  i,  p.  230,  n.  1 ;  and  Romischen  Priesterehen,  von  J.  Leute,  in 
Die  N.  G.,  July,  1909. 

11  For  the  existence  in  England  of  a  low  standard  of  opinion  in 
regard  to  antenuptial  intercourse,  see  Booth,  Life  and  Labor,  final 
vol.,  p.  44. 

12  In  the  ethical  consciousness  of  the  natural  man  we  see  a  strife 
between  two  opposing  tendencies  during  the  period  of  engagement, 
the  one  the  influence  of  taboo  between  himself  and  his  future  wife 
(Crawley,  op.  cit.,  pp.  314,  315),  which  makes  for  strict  morality  and 
strengthens  monogamy;  the  other  a  practice,  not  perhaps  licentious 
in  idea  to  primitive  man  himself,  but  in  its  essence  destructive  of 
niorality,  viz.,  the  rehearsal  of  the  sexual  activities  which  he  was 
soon  to  be  called   on  to  exercise  in   marriage    (id..  307ff.). 


136  SEXUAL    PROMISCUITY. 

The  idea  of  betrothal  has  sometimes  been  loosely  defined, 
just  as  the  terms  denoting  betrothed  persons  have  been  loosely 
and  inaccurately  used;i3  and  in  some  societies  the  betrothal 
has  been  more  emphasized  than  the  celebration  of  marriage.^'* 
In  this  we  perceive  a  tendency  to  shift  the  acceptance  of  respon- 
sibility, and  by  consequence  the  conveyance  of  sexual  privilege, 
from  marriage  to  betrothal ;  in  fact,  to  turn  betrothal  into 
marriage. 

But  this  development  has  seldom  been  fully  carried 
out  in  Christian  societies ;  for  the  distinction  that  betrothal  is 
a  promise  for  the  future,  while  marriage  is  an  agreement  in 
and  from  the  present,  has  usually  been  maintained,  and  is  cer- 
tainly a  cardinal  feature  of  modern  ethical  theory.  The  idea 
of  mutual  responsibility  not  being  fully  and  finally  expressed 
in  betrothal,  that  event  does  not  fulfill  the  conditions  of  mar- 
riage, as  accepted  by  Christianity,  sufiiciently  to  allow  of  sexual 
privilege  being  legitimately  appropriated.  The  mutual  consent 
to  undertake  life  together,  in  accordance  with  the  standard  of 
obligation  recognized  in  the  social  environment,  is  not  yet 
definitely  made.^-^  While  Christian  morality  requires  from 
the  parties  to  an  engagement  a  high  standard  of  honor  in  re- 
spect of  the  promise  they  have  made,  it  does  not  put  verba  de 
fiitiiro  on  the  same  level  of  obligation  as  z'erba\  de  prccsenti. 
And  while  it  encourages  the  parties  to  an  engagement  to 
acquire  general  personal  knowledge  of  each  other,  it  does  not 


1^  Sanchez,  De  Matrim.  Sacr..  1.  i,  disp.  i. 

14  Howard,   Hist,  of  Matr.  Institutions,  vol.   i.  p.  374. 

15  Cp.  Aquinas,  Suppl.  Sum.  Theol.,  qu.  xlvi,  art.  2.  Aquinas 
holds  that  matrimony  is  not  effected  by  the  ipso  facto  of  an  engaged 
couple  coming  together,  unless  the  act  is  accompanied  by  an  inward 
consent  equivalent  to  the  consensus  per  verba  de  prccsenti;  but  that, 
if  the  case  came  before  the  Church  courts  they  might,  in  default  of 
evidence  to  the  contrary,  assume  that  there  was  such  a  consent,  and 
hence,  in  accordance  with  the  Church's  ultimate  canon  of  validity, 
might  regard  the  marriage  as  effected.  In  other  words,  the  Church 
might  regard,  and  might  hold  the  parties  bound  to  regard,  the  so- 
called  prenuptial  relations  as  in  fact  conjugal  relations. 


SEXUAL    PROMISCUITY.  137 

admit  the  irresponsible  rehearsal  of  the  farthest  sexual  activi- 
ties.    It  contains  no  doctrine  of  a  Probehe.^^ 

Consequently,  although  the  special  circumstances  in  which 
such  an  irregularity  takes  place  may  conceivably  be  such  as 
to  soften  judgment  upon  it;  for  it  may  come  in,  as  it  were, 
accidentally  in  the  life  of  an  engaged  couple  who  are  ordinarily 
well-principled ;  yet  it  is  not  licit.  No  one  can  be  so  secure  of 
the  duration  of  his  life  as  to  allow  of  his  taking  the  risk  of 
being  able  to  compensate  by  future  marriage  for  an  act  which 
without  such  compensation  would  be  self -regarding  and  anti- 
social, and  therefore  wrong. 


16  "Et  si  non  habetis  uxores,  non  licet  vobis  habere  concubinas, 
quas  postea  dimittatis,  ut  dncatis  uxores."   (Aug.,  Serm.,  392,  c.  2). 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Prostitution. 

General  View  of  the  Situation — A  Dialogue — The  Sacking  of  a 
City — The  Victorious  Soldiery — The  Women  in  the  City — Moral 
Grades  of  Women — The  Phenomenon  of  Prostitution — Its  Place  in 
the  Social  Sex  Process — Women  in  Defense  of  their  Honor — The 
Main  Ground  of  their  Defense — Women's  Attitude  to  Marriage  and 
to   Prostitution. 

"Suppose  now,  Monsieur  le  Commandant,"  I  said  to 
him, — "for  your  large  observation  of  men  and  of  the  world 
puts  you  in  the  way  of  forming  a  competent  opinion  on  this 
matter, — suppose  an  army  had  sat  down  before  a  rich  city  for 
a  long  time,  to  take  it ;  and  suppose  the  soldiers  had  gone 
through  much  toil  and  danger  with  that  prize  in  view,  what 
would  be  likely  to  be  the  immediate  moral  effect  upon  them, 
when  at  last  they  broke  into  that  city?" 

"Explain  yourself  a  little  in  detail,"  said  he. 

"Well,  I  will  lead  up  to  my  point  by  a  few  questions.  The 
soldiers,  when  they  forced  the  defenses,  would  be  like  a  pent-up 
stream  let  loose.  They  would  have  burst,  all  in  a  moment,  the 
resisting  barriers  and  controlling  bounds  which  had  kept  them 
back  so  long.  That  stream  would  now  rush  hither  and  thither. 
It  would  sweep  along  with  it,  in  its  first  headlong  impetus, 
many  things  that  had  seemed  solid  and  immovable  heretofore. 

"Leaving  the  metaphor.  Monsieur,  would  not  the  soldiers 
be  likely  to  get  out  of  hand  in  the  flush  of  victory;  and  to 
profit  by  their  victory  on  their  own  account,  not  merely  for 
political  ends?  I  put  the  matter  in  the  rough.  I  think  of 
them  en  masse,  collectively;  there  are  some  side  questions 
which  I  will  not  stay  to  ask, — as,  whether  the  victorious 
soldiers  of  one  nation  would  be  more  impetuous  than  those 
of  another  in  exploiting  the  profits  of  victory ;  whether 
(138) 


PROSTITUTION.  139 

a  percentage,  and  what  percentage,  of  the  soldiers  would  keep 
their  heads,  and  be  remarkable  for  self-control  at  that  moment; 
how  far  their  officers  might  be  expected  to  preserve  their  disci- 
plinary function  in  the  taking  of  the  city,  or  how  far  they 
themselves  might  be  overborne  by  the  wave  of  excitement 
which  bore  upon  its  crest  the  main  body  of  victorious  men. 

"Speaking  generally,  would  the  army  that  now  broke  in 
be  likely  to  get  out  of  hand,  and  to  draw  its  own  profit  from  the 
victory  ?" 

"It  might  well  be  so;  it  has  been  so  often,  and  may  be  so 
again." 

"Well,  then.  Monsieur  le  Commandant,  let  me  develop  my 
questioning  thought  in  my  own  way.  I  don't  want  to  picture 
to  myself  the  general  lurid  scene : — 

All  that  the  mind  would  shrink  from  of  excesses; 

All  that  the  body  perpetrates  of  bad ; 
All   that  we   read,   hear,   dream,   of   man's    distresses; 

All   that  the   devil  would  do   if   run   stark   mad; 
All  that  defies  the  worst  which  pen  expressses ; — 

"And  'tis  not  carnage  that  I  am  thinking  of  primarily. 
But  tell  me  now ;  the  men  would  run  at  their  will  to  and  fro 
throughout  the  streets,  squares,  and  buildings  of  that  city. 
They  would  be  likely  to  find  drink ;  and  then,  then — after  the 
long  siege,, after  the  toil  of  the  trenches;  after  the  weary  days 
and  nights;  after  the  weeks  and  weeks  of  strict  discipline; 
after  the  pain  and  woimds  and  grim  realities  of  war, — many 
of  them  would  be  likely  to  get  drunk,  is  it  not  so?" 

"It  is  likely  enough,"  said  he. 

"I  feel  sure  of  it,  Monsieur.  But  that's  not  all.  There 
would  certainly  be  women  in  that  city.  Now,  how  would  the 
impatient,  triumphant,  fiercely  excited  men  act  in  regard  to 
the  women?  Would  not  those  men — all  social  law  having 
bowed  down  for  the  moment,  like  a  bed  of  bending  rushes 
before  the  weight  of  the  torrent — be  likely  to  do  violence  to 
the  women?" 

"Well,  that,"  said  he,  "does  happen  in  the  sack  of  cities ; 


140  PROSTITUTION. 

but  why  speak  of  it  now  ?  Leave  such  things  unthought  of  till 
they  come,  if  they  must  come." 

"Monsieur  le  Commandant,  the  purport  of  my  questions 
will  be  clear  presently.  Only  allow  my  thoughts  to  run  freely 
along  the  line  of  the  facts." 

"Well,  Monsieur,  proceed,"  said  he. 

"In  regard,  then,  to  this  violence  which  the  invading  men — 
or,  rather,  many  of  the  men ;  for  I  know  well  that  a  general 
idea  is  only  approximately  in  accord  with  facts — would  offer 
to  the  women  of  the  city,  I  would  ask  more  precisely,  what 
would  be  the  manner  and  the  measure  of  it?  Say  that  the 
pent-up  passions  of  the  victorious  soldiery  are  a  fearful  menace 
to  the  women  of  the  city ;  say  that  the  menace  is  being  momen- 
tarily transformed  into  crises  of  danger  for  the  honor  of  the 
women ;  say  that  the  frenetic  tumult  is  setting  at  nought  all 
written  and  codified  law ;  yet  since  there  are  laws  of  wider 
scope  than  humanity's  social  laws,  since  no  force  in  the  universe 
— not  even  such  as  seem  to  us  the  most  ungoverned — can  act 
independently  of  some  law,  can  we  not,  by  having  regard  to 
the  probabilities  of  this  night  of  triumphant  outrage  which  we 
are  supposing,  perceive  that  the  men's  violence  toward  the 
female  community  in  that  city  would  be  in  some  measure 
reduced  and  checked  by  the  action  of  a  general  law?" 

"What  general  law,"  said  he,  "what  moderating  principle 
can  you  discern  here?" 

"Well,  Monsieur,  let  us  make  an  attempt — though  'tis 
indeed  a  hard  one  for  two  men;  and  we  make  it,  as  it 
were,  from  the  outside,  as  the  Earth  investigates  Venus 
through  the  telescope — an  attempt  to  estimate  and  analyze  the 
resistance  which  the  women  of  the  taken  city  would  offer  to 
the  violence  impending  against  them.  What  would  the  women 
of  the  city  do,  instinctively  and'impulsively,  if  they  knew  that 
this  danger  had  suddenly  broken  upon  them,  and  that  the  life 
of  their  honor  might  be  a  matter  of  moments?-  What  would 
they  do,  when  darkness  closed  over  the  city ;  when  they  knew 


PROSTITUTION.  141 

that  force  and  drunkenness  were  in  it,  and  that  force  and 
drunkenness  were  stronger  than  all  social  law  ?" 

"Do?"  said  he.  "Well,  there  is  one  thing  I  suppose  they 
would  do.    They  would  try  to  keep  out  of  the  way." 

"I  expect  you  are  right,  Monsieur  le  Commandant.  That 
would  be  their  impulse.  It  would  be  an  impulse  that  most 
would  feel.  But  then, — it  is  needful  for  us  to  be  as  precise 
as  we  can  in  the  matter — would  they  all  try,  with  a  uniform 
desperation  as,  it  were,  to  keep  out  of  the  way  ?" 

"Why  no,"  said  he,  "if  you  mean  to  be  as  precise  as  all 
that,  I  should  say  no.  Women  vary  just  as  men  vary.  Some 
are  far  more  particular  about  themselves  than  others.  That 
depends  on  all  sorts  of  things,  temperament,  upbringing,  re- 
ligion, traditions  and " 

"I  know,  Monsieur.  Obviously,  then,  those  who  were 
most  particular  about  themselves  would  be  most  anxious  to 
keep  out  of  the  way.  They  would  retreat  to  the  farthest  point 
possible  before  the  inrushing  soldiers.  They  would  fall  back 
on  the  last  defenses.  They  would  call  on  those  of  their  own 
men  who  were  left  to  protect  them  to  the  last.  If  all  protec- 
tion failed,  if  all  retreat  was  at  an  end,  if  all  concealment  was 
unavailing,  then  they  would  do  desperate  things.  They  would 
battle  to  the  last  gasp  for  their  chastity.  They  might  succeed 
in  killing  some  of  the  men.  Or  they  might  determine  to  kill 
themselves.  Women  who  set  a  very  high  value  on  their 
chastity  have  acted  thus  in  time  of  war  and  on  other 
occasions.  1 

"Those,  then,  who  were  very  particular  about  themselves, 
and  who  had  formed  very  desperate  resolutions  to  safeguard 
their  honor,  would  be  likely  to  some  extent  to  succeed  in  their 
intention.  But,  Monsieur  le  Commandant,  we  must  bear  in 
mind  that  there  would  be  tens,  perhaps  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  women  in  that  citv;  and  we  observed  just  now  that  women 


1  Zockler,  Askese  unci  Monchtum,  p.  260 ;  Jeremy  Taylor,  Ductor 
Dubitantium,  bk.  iii,  ch.  ii,  rule  iii ;  Plos  &  Bartels,  Das  Weib,  Bd. 
ii,   Ixxvii. 


142  PROSTITUTION. 

vary  much  in  their  estimate  of  their  own  value.  And  on  the 
strength  of  that  observation  we  conjectured  that  the  whole 
vast  mass  of  the  women  in  the  city  would  not  keep  out  of  the 
soldiers'  way  with  a  uniform  anxiety  and  determination.  Is 
not  that  right?" 

"Well,  to  be  sure,"  said  he,  "if  chastity  alone  were  at  stake, 
and  there  was  no  further  question  of  injury  or  of  loss  of  life, 
there  would  be  several  degrees  or  gradations  of  eagerness  to 
avoid  the  men.  It  would  be  a  more  or  less  decided,  more  or 
less  genuine,  more  or  less  doubtful  and  simulated  eagerness.  It 
is  impossible  to  mark  ofif  the  various  kinds  quite  distinctly." 

"Kinds?    Kinds  of  women?" 

"Yes." 

"Well,  if  there  is  one  kind  that  would  be  very  particular 
about  chastity,  there  is  another — leaving  intermediate  kinds 
out  of  account — that  wouldn't  be  particular  at  all.  Is  not 
that  so?" 

"Of  course.  That  kind  is  found  in  every  city,  as  certainly 
as  the  opposite  kind." 

"We  both  mean  the  prostitutes?" 

"We  do  mean  the  prostitutes." 

"The  prostitutes  are  the  kind  of  women  who  wouldn't 
make  any  attempt  at  all  to  keep  out  of  the  men's  way, — if 
chastity  alone  were  in  question?" 

"Well,  no  real  attempt." 

"And  even  the  kind  of  women  whom  we  roughly  class  as 
prostitutes,  Monsieur  le  Commandant,  is  made  up  of  various 
subkinds,  so  the  experts  in  social  science  maintain.-  In  the 
whole  kind  or  genus,  the  idea  of  chastity  receives  various 
measures  of  value,  from  a  certain  appreciable  value  down  to 
almost  nil.  But  that  question  may  stand  over;  for  I  am  con- 
cerned with  another, — that  of  estimating  how  the  presence  of 
the  prostitutes  would  affect  the  general  rush  of  the  men  upon 


2  See  esp.  Forel,  Die  sexuelle  Frage,  pp.  299ff. ;  Rosa  Mayreder  in 
Mutterschiitz   for  1907,  p.  102. 


PROSTITUTION.  143 

the  women  in  the  city.  For  let  us  consider ;  men  weary  of 
waiting,  men  full  of  hunger  and  violent  passion,  men  coarsened 
and  inflamed  with  drink,  in  their  search  for  women,  would  not 
be  particular  as  to  what  women  they  found.  If  some  women 
kept  out  of  the  way,  and  were  difficult  of  access,  the  men 
would  seize  upon  those  who  were  readier  to  hand.  And  this 
fact  would  serve  as  a  check  to  the  impact  of  headlong  animal 
passion  upon  the  city.  It  would  weaken  the  active  force  of  it ; 
in  the  same  way  as  the  z'is  viva  of  a  projectile  becomes  lost 
in  the  sandbags,  so  that  it  becomes  harmless,  or  nearly  so, 
when  it  reaches  the  hard  defenses  behind  them.  Thus  in  the 
taking  of  the  city  the  relations  of  the  sexes  would  become  dis- 
organized on  a  large  scale ;  yet  even  then,  rape  itself,  real  gen- 
uine rape,  would  be  rare, — that  is,  assuming  that  the  number 
of  the  women  is  large.  There  are,  of  course,  historical  cases, 
as  at  Cawnpore,  in  which  a  small  number  of  women — and  those 
of  the  particular  kind — have  been  caught  by  a  large  number  of 
men ;  and  then  real  rape  is  only  too  probable.  But  in  the  case 
I  am  contemplating,  real  rape  tends  to  be  at  a  discount.  So, 
Monsieur  le  Commandant,  in  the  sack  of  the  city,  the  easier  or 
less  moral  types  or  grades  of  women,  in  a  sense,  protect  the 
difficult  and  moral  types, — those  who  are  quite  desperately  re- 
solved to  keep  out  of  the  men's  waj.  That  is  how  the  matter 
would  work  out,  is  it  not  ?" 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "I  believe  it  would  be  approximately  like 
that." 

"And  the  women  who  would  be  likely  to  meet  the  men  first 
woud  be  the  prostitutes,  is  it  not  so  ?" 

"Certainly,"  he  said.  "Most  probably,  anyhow.  Yes,  the 
prostitutes.  And  I  declare,  when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  we 
seem  to  have  a  picture  or  a  concentrated  account  of  what  goes 
on  all  the  time  between  the  sexes  in  civilized  countries." 

"That  is  what  I  thought  when  I  began  putting  my  ques- 
tions, Monsieur.  We  seem  led  around  to  the  well-known 
position  of  many  moralists  from  Augustine  onward.  You. 
as    a    Frenchman,    can    bear    to    have    an    idea    expressed    in 


144  PROSTITUTION. 

philosophical  language;  so  I  would  say  that,  regarding 
the  sex  process  in  humanity,  as  a  whole,  it  seems  as  if 
the  Female  Principle^  defends  itself,  or  rather,  perhaps, 
defends  the  idea  of  Purity — its  function  being  in  part  resistant 
or  defensive — against  the  attacking  Male  Principle,  by  throw- 
ing forward  a  large  number  of  its  exponents  to  meet  the  first 
delivery  of  the  attack.  Were  the  whole  onset  and  impetus  of 
masculine  passion  not  weakened  in  this  or  some  such  way,  by 
unconscious  generalship  on  the  part  of  the  defense,  there 
would  be  greater  confusion  in  the  sex  life  of  society  at  large, 
even  than  there  is  now." 

"That  view,"  said  he,  "justifies  prostitution  on  the  ground 
of  its  social  necessity." 

"Pardon  me.  Monsieur  le  Commandant,  'justifies'  is  a  mis- 
leading word.  It  is  premature;  for  I  have  not  yet  touched  on 
ethics.  Ethics  deals  with  what  ought  to  be,  with  conditions 
which  it  is  the  part  of  moral  beings  to  bring  about ;  and  we 
have  been  speaking  hitherto  of  that  which  is,  of  the  conditions 
of  the  social  sex  process  as  they  actually  are,  or  have  been. 
We  do  not  justify  prostitution,  unless  we  say  that  the  social 
conditions  which  are,  and  which  contain  the  causation  of  pros- 
titution, are  also  the  conditions  which  ought  to  be,  with  the 
implication  that  prostitution  ought  to  continue.  I  have  con- 
sidered this  point  before,  and  'tis  certain  that  prostitution  ought 
not  to  continue  indefinitely ;  and  we  may  allow  ourselves  to 
think  that  it  will  not.  But  this  prediction  can  as  yet  be  made 
only  in  quite  general  terms." 

He  assented  by  silence  to  this  last  remark. 

Then  he  said,  "Do  you  identify  the  Female  Principle  with 
the  aggregate  of  the  women  in  a  community  ?" 

"No,  surely,"  I  replied,  "the  one  is  abstract  and  the  other 
concrete.  But  the  women  of  a  community  express  the  Female 
Principle  pretty  fully  in  their  collective  consciousness." 


3  1   use  the  term  in  its   scientific  sense    (=anabolism),  not  in  its 
qiiasireligious   sense. 


PROSTITUTION.  145 

"Just  so,"  said  he.  "Now  you  said  that  the  Female  Prin- 
ciple exhibits  unconscious  generalship  in  the  matter  of  prostitu- 
tion. Doesn't  that  imply  that  the  women  of  a  community, 
although  they  are  on  the  defensive  in  the  social  sex  process, 
are  not  on  that  account  passive  or  immobile,  but  conduct  the 
defense  actively?" 

"Certainly,"  I  admitted. 

"Well — men  apart  for  the  moment — what  is  the  moral 
result  of  their  defensive  activity  among  themselves?" 

"I  don't  see  the  drift  of  your  questions  now.  Monsieur." 

"Well,"  he  said,  "you  will  see  presently.  Those  women 
in  the  taken  city,  or  in  the  social  sex  process  in  general,  who 
take  most  care  of  themselves — what  are  they  protecting?" 

"Why,  Purity  or  Honor,  to  be  sure." 

"They  protect  it  because  they  value  it  ?" 

"Certainly." 

"Well,  why  do  they  value  it?" 

"Really,  that  is  not  so  easy  to  answer.  If  I  say  they  value 
purity  for  its  own  sake,  you  will  object  that  women  have  no 
metaphysical  theory  of  what  things  are  in  themselves.  They 
don't  know,  any  more  than  we,  what  purity  is  in  and  for 
itself ;  they  only  know  it  in  relation  to  the  facts  of  life,  and  it 
is  in  that  relation  that  they  must  value  it.  If  I  say  they  value 
it  because  God  desires  it,  you  will  reply  that  they  haven't 
formed  a  theological  any  more  than  a  metaphysical  theory  of 
its  value;  that  this  reason  really  means  that  they  accept  what 
priests  tell  them  in  the  matter ;  and  that,  so  far  as  the  religious 
reason  is  concerned,  other  women,  on  the  authority  of  other 
priests,  have  accepted  and  acted  on  just  the  contrary  principle, 
believing  that  God  (as  they  knew  Him)  desired  them  not  to 
guard  their  purity,  but  to  give  it  away.-*  I  should  think,  on  the 
whole,  their  strong  practical  reason  for  defending  their  purity 
is  that  their  husbands  or  their  prospective  husbands  value  it ; 

■iPloss  &  Bartels,  op.  cit.,  Bd.  i,  pp.  530,  558;  Ed.  Meyer,  Die 
Israeliten  und  ihre  Nachbarstamme,  resumed  in  II  Rinnovamento,  fasc. 
V,  vi,  pp.  427ff. 

10 


146  PROSTITUTION. 

the  women  protect  it  for  their  sakes.  Of  course,  there  are 
other  reasons  as  well,  physical  shrinking  from  roughness,  and 
the  instinctive  fear  produced  by  the  mystery  of  sex,  and  de- 
veloped in  many  societies  into  a  mystical  religious  fear.  But 
considering  that  the  highly  principled  married  women  would 
defend  their  honor  at  least  as  energetically  as  the  unmarried, 
if  not  more  so ;  and  considering  that  an  experienced  woman 
who  was  giving  good  advice  to  a  fast  girl  would  urge  her  to 
be  discreet  largely  on  the  ground  that  if  she  wanted  discretion 
no  right-minded  or  prudent  man  would  take  her  as  his  wife, 
I  think  that  the  reason  I  have  assigned  is  their  chief  one." 

"Then,"  said  he,  "the  moral  effect  upon  women  of  having 
husbands,  or  of  expecting  to  have  them,  is  good.    Is  it  not  so  ?" 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  "that  fact  makes  them  value  purity ;  so 
it  is  good." 

"Then,  if  that  expectation  is  good,  does  it  not  follow  that 
a  wish  grounded  on  it  is  lawful  and  good?" 

•"You  mean,  is  it  morally  right  for  women  to  wish  to  have 
husbands  ?" 

"Yes." 

"Well,  I  think  it  is  certainly  a  right  wish ;  and,  col- 
lectively speaking,  the  women  of  the  most  orderly  societies 
entertain  it  more  or  less  consciously.  If  they  had  not  got  it,  the 
relations  of  the  sexes  in  those  societies  would  be  adjusted  in 
quite  a  different  manner  from  the  present." 

"Then  let  us  reason  a  step  farther.  If  women,  speaking 
generally,  have  that  wish,  they  have,  also  speaking  generally, 
certain  means  of  achieving  it.     Is  not  that  so?" 

"Undoubtedly  they  have.  These  are  the  feminine  'means 
of  attraction.'  Westermarck  and  other  anthropologists  discuss 
them  very  fully." 

"\'ery  well.  Now,  is  it  wrong  for  a  woman  to  employ 
her  'means  of  attraction,'  in  order  to  achieve  the  wish  we  are 
considering?" 

"Certainly  not  wrong,  if  her  employment  of  them  is 
genuinely    inspired    by    that    intention,    and    doesn't    involve 


PROSTlTUTlOxV.  147 

neglect  of  dignity  and  seemliness  and  modesty,  and  all  that 
is  implied  in  the  defensive  attitude  proper  to  the  Female 
Principle.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  employment  by  women  of 
the  means  of  attraction  in  order  to  procure  husbands  does  take 
place  in  the  social  sex  process." 

"Then  inevitably  there  eventuates  among  the  women  of  a 
community  a  sort  of  subconscious  competition  for  husbands. 
And  this  competition  is  a  factor,  perhaps  the  determining  fac- 
tor, in  the  evolution  of  woman's  purity  or  honor  as  we  know 
it  in  our  European  civilizations  and  many  other  civilizations. 
The  feeling  that  one  must  guard  one's  self  for  a  man's  sake, 
the  expectation  that  some  day  that  man  will  come,  the  hope 
and  wish  that  he  will  come,  the  modest  and  dignified  encour- 
agement offered  him  when  he  does  come, — do  not  these  move- 
ments go  on  every  day  in  the  souls  of  finely  developed  and 
highly  principled  women?" 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "that  is  so." 

"And  as  far  as  men  are  concerned,"  he  continued,  "it  is 
well.  It;  is  what  we  require.  It  is  good  for  us.  We  learn  to 
respect  women  who  stand  thus  on  their  dignity." 

I  agreed. 

He  went  on,  "But  now  I  have  led  up  to  my  question.  The 
resulting  moral  effect  upon  and  among  the  women  themselves, 
of  this  subconscious  competition,  what  is  that  ?  There  must 
obviously  be  many  losers  in  the  competition ;  and  for  the 
losers,  they  must  be — so  far  as  the  sex  life  is  concerned — 
either  impure,  becoming  prostitutes,  mistresses,  and  the  like ; 
or  at  best  negatively  chaste — desolate  in  respect  of  sex  love. 
The  winners  get,  and  perhaps  deserve,  the  credit  for  the 
social  standard  of  purity  that  results  from  the  subconscious 
competition.  As  to  the  losers, — the  impure  ones, — society  at 
large  gives  them  nothing;  whatever  they  get  of  satisfaction 
in  the  sex  life,  they  must  take  unsanctioned,  unadorned,  and 
at  their  own  risk.  But  neither  does  it  give  the  pure  losers  any- 
thing. The  chaste  spinster  gets  very  little  social  sympathy, 
nay,  even  a  good  deal  of  social  contempt,  for  being  what  she  is. 


148  PROSTITUTION. 

Scientists  anxiously,^  and  sometimes  with  pessimism,^  scruti- 
nize life's  field  for  compensations  (Ersatz)  for  her  sexual 
renunciations ;  and  some  of  us  say,  with  more  or  less  belief  in 
what  we  say  and  knowledge  of  what  we  mean,  that  she  gets 
various  good  things  from  God.  Now,  how  do  the  winners 
regard  the  losers,  with  sympathy  or  pity  or  pride  or  contempt, 
or  how?" 

"Well,  variously,"  I  replied.  "Formerly  it  was  mainly 
with  contempt,  and  to  a  large  extent  it  is  so  still.'''  But  now- 
adays sympathy  and  pity,  in  this  regard,  are  entering  largely 
into  the  minds  of  the  winners."^ 

"You  think  so?" 

"I  do.    I  base  my  opinion  on  social  facts." 

"What  facts?" 

"Well,  Monsieur,  it  would  be  too  lengthy  a  matter  to  pre- 
sent them  at  this  moment.  If  you  will  excuse  me,  I  will  think 
our  conversation  over,  and  shall  perhaps  come  to  some  conclu- 
sions which  I  can  set  down  on  paper." 

"Certainly,"  said  he.  "But  anyhow,  it  looks  as  if  deep 
interior  changes  are  going  on  in  the  social  sex  process,  affect- 
ing both  the  Male  and  the  Female  Principles  in  it.  Is  it 
not  so?" 

"It  is,"  said  I- — "psychical,  spiritual  changes." 

"Changes  for  the  better?" 

"Yes ;  eventually  they  will  work  out  for  the  better. 
Goodbye,  Monsieur  le  Commandant.  You,  I  know,  are  all  for 
steadying  the  ugly  rush,  whether  in  peace  or  in  war." 

"Adieu,  Monsieur  le  Chapelain." 


^  Forel,   Die  sexuelle  Frage,  pp.   118f. 

6  Freud,  quoted  in  H.  Ellis,  Sex  in  Relation  to  Society,  p.  189. 

"^  Cp.  Havelock  Ellis,  op.  cit.,  p.  411.  He  says  that  marriage  has 
been  too  often  in  a  woman's  life,  "at  the  most,  an  event  which  has 
given  her  a  triumph  over  her  rivals." 

s  Id.,  p.  318,  "So  long  as  we  are  incapable  of  such  methods — the 
remedial  methods  proposed  by  the  author — we  must  be  content  with 
the  prostitution  we  deserve,  learning  to  treat  it  with  the  pity  and  the 
respect  which  so  intimate  a  failure  of  our  civilization  is  entitled  to." 
{Cp.  C.  Gasquoine  Hartley,  The  Truth  about  Woman,  p.  368.) 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Prostitution   and   the   Social   Sex    Process. 

Comparative  Ethics — The  Evolutionary  Ethical  Process — In- 
creasing Rationality  of  Collective  Sexual  Consciousness — Ethical 
Evolution  of  the  Masculine  Impulse — Transition  from  Fear  to  Volun- 
tary Self-control — Ethical  Evolution  of  the  Feminine  Impulse — 
Women's  Growing  Enlightenment  on  the  Ethics  of  Sex — Self-control 
and  Sympathy  the  Fruits  of  the  Evolution  of  Sexual  Morality. 

Owing  to  the  progress  made  in  individual  and  collective 
psychology,  it  is  at  length  possible  to  see  the  use  of  compara- 
tive estimates  of  morality.  The  moral  history  of  mankind  is 
seen  to  be  governed  by  principles  of  evolutionary  continuity 
and  change.  Just  as  in  evolutionary  psychology  the  processes 
of  the  soul,  instinct,  emotion,  thought,  and  volition,  are  no 
longer  regarded  as  generically  distinct,  with  a  distinctness  im- 
plying isolation  in  respect  of  each  other  ;i  so  in  the  new  moral 
philosophy,  the  moral  phenomena  are  seen  to  overlap  or  blend. 
In  the  social  aggregate  of  actions  or  courses  of  conduct  or 
states  of  life,  presenting  itself  for  ethical  analysis  and  evalua- 
tion, a  number  of  gradations  are  perceptible.  The  social 
sense  of  past  generations  is  seen  to  have  been  inexact  and 
arbitrary,  in  its  rigid  ethical  demarcations  and  generalizations. 

A  French  thinker  has  recently  elaborated  this  point  of 
view,  particularly  in  reference  to  sexual  morals. ^  He  has 
shown  that  the  accustomed  classification  of  a  great  civilized 
society  into  distinct  sections  of  moral  and  immoral  livers ;  of 
types  of  life,  one  pure  without  qualification,  as  family  life; 
the  other  correspondingly  impure,  as  the  life  of  prostitution,  is 


1  James,  A  Textbook  of  Psychology,  pp.  373,  398;  Baldwin,  The 
Story  of  the  Mind;  T.  H.  Green,  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  p.  153. 

-  Paul  Bureau,  La  Crise  Morale  dcs  Temps  Nouveaux,  reviewed 
in  Nova  et  Vetera,  vol.  i,  p.  27. 

(149) 


150  PROSTITUTION    AND    SOCIETY. 

not  wholly  sound:  on  the  contrary,  "there  is  a  perceptible 
crescendo  of  acquiescence  and  of  compromises/' — leading  to 
the  most  antisocial  phenomena  of  all.  Good  and  evil,  in  fact, 
are  graded  or  blended  in  the  collective  or  social  mind,  as  they 
are  in  individual  minds.  When  a  man  becomes  self-critical  in 
a  candid  and  understanding,  not  merely  in  a  morbid  spirit,  his 
judgment,  in  spite  of  his  general  perception  of  the  two  opposed 
principles  of  good  and  bad,  frequently  has  great  difficulty  in 
deciding  to  which  of  those  principles  his  particular  thought.s 
belong.  What  seems  good  shades  off  into  what  seems  evil. 
And  the  social  perplexity  reproduces  on  a  great  scale  the  per- 
sonal one.  In  the  individual  and  in  the  collective  mind  alike, 
moral  sentiments  and  ideas  strive  together  confusedly. 

But  for  my  own  part  I  have  an  optimistic  faith  in  the  out- 
come of  the  evolutionary  ethical  process,  whatever  number  of 
gradations  it  now  presents  to  our  perplexed  faculty  of  value- 
judging.  I  will  make  some  attempt  to  state  a  posteriori 
reasons  for  this  faith.  As  the  collective  mind  of  society  be- 
comes adult,  the  whole  social  theory  of  the  sex  process  is 
affected.  In  the  growing  general  enlightenment,  that  process 
will  become,  nay,  is  rapidly  becoming,  more  and  more  con- 
scious, on  both  its  sides,  the  masculine  and  the  feminine ;  more 
and  more,  I  mean,  drawn  up  into  the  higher  grades  of  con- 
sciousness, rationality,  and  spirituality.  No  doubt  an  analysis 
of  this  evolution  could  be  made.  Objective  factors  could  be 
distinguished  in  it;  and  of  these  I  should  hold  that  Christian- 
ity— Christianity  of  a  vital  kind,  full  of  light,  love,  and 
progress^ — is  the  supreme  one. 

But  I  can  scarcely  attempt  this  analysis.  I  am  content 
with  stating  my  conviction,  the  result  of  such  a  survey  of 
moral  history  as  has  been  possible  to  me;  that  both  the  im- 
pulse to  attack,  the  modus  operandi  of  the  Male  Principle,  and 
the  impulse  to  defend,  the  response  of  the  Female  Principle, 
are  being  exercised  in  a  manner  gradually  and  indefinitely  less 


3  See    a    brief    but    luminous    article    on    religious,    inclusive    of 
ethical,  progress  by  A.   Crespi,  Nova  et  Vetera,  ann.  i,  n.  9,  pp.  285ff. 


PROSTITUTION    AND    SOCIETY.  151 

blind.  The  collective  moral  sense  of  the  male  community  is 
becoming  finer  and  more  discriminating  in  regard  to  the  moral 
values  of  phenomena  in  the  social  sex  process.  For  the  col- 
lective masculine  mind  I  believe  that  this  is  so;  whatever  may 
be  said  about  the  existence  of  low,  fast,  or  selfish  groups  or 
sets,  or  of  psychologically  abnormal  types,  among  men. 

Look  at  the  ethical  evolution  of  the  masculine  impulse. 
In  primitive  mankind,  the  masculine  consciousness,  or  the 
male  soul,  discerned  the  elements  of  a  moral  law  for  its  own 
action,  the  germinal  principles  of  the  morality  which  our 
modern  collective  opinion  professes ;  but  in  the  experience  of 
primitive  mankind  itself,  such  a  sexual  ethic  as  was  expressed 
in  its  social  customs  and  lay  within  the  purview  of  its  social 
outlook,  was  an  ethic  formed  by  external  pressure  and  largely 
inspired  by  fear.  Might  and  mystery,  forces  which  a  man's  in- 
telligence had  not  penetrated  and  against  which  his  will  had 
not  yet  learned  to  rebel,  were  the  chief  sources  of  the  inhibi- 
tions of  his  sex  life. 

There  arose,  to  be  sure,  in  the  gregarious  life  of  primitive 
mankind,  certain  negative  conditions  favoring  the  quiescence 
of  the  Male  Principle  vis-a-vis  with  the  Female.  We  have  an 
important  psychological  factor  in  the  ethical  evolution  of  the 
Male  Principle,  in  this  primarily  negative  state  of  things,  in 
this  set  of  non-excitant  conditions.  In  my  view,  we  may  look 
here  for  the  origin  of  some  positive  inhibitions.-* 

But  I  am  thinking  now  mainly  of  the  Male  Principle  in  a 
state  of  excitation.  In  the  primitive  darkness  of  humanity's 
existence,  before  the  earliest  dawn  of  history,  we  have  to  pict- 
ure it  as  rushing  on  the  Female ;  and  the  stronger  of  the  con- 
crete exponents  of  the  former  principle,  the  men  who  were 
socially  high  and  powerful,  seized  upon  the  pleasure  and  the 
])rize.  That  such  was  the  modus  operandi  of  the  social  sex 
l^rocess  on  the  masculine  side  is  indicated  by  the  former  exist- 
ence of  a  different  standard  of  morality  for  the  socially  great. 


-*  Sec    p.    53 f.,    where   I    refer   to    more    elaborate   studies    of   this 
lioint. 


152  PROSTITUTION    AND    SOCIETY. 

as  compared  with  that  which  was  deemed  obHgatory  for  the 
low  ;^  and  in  the  ancient  recognition  by  the  collective  masculine 
mind  of  special  rights,  the  bare  idea  of  which  it  would  now 
indignantly  repudiate. 

To  take  the  past  history  of  Christian  Europe  alone,  in  the 
seignorial  rights  symbolized  in  the  stepping  of  the  chief  or 
noble  across  the  bed  of  his  subject's  or  his  retainer's  bride, 
with  the  husband's  submissive  acquiescence ;  or  in  the  open 
toleration,  in  favor  of  princes  and  other  social  magnates,  of  a 
system  of  concubinage  almost  equivalent  to  conjugal  polygamy, 
we  perceive  clearly  enough  a  sexual  ethic  in  which  physical 
might  is  the  determining  element :  fear  of  force  is  the  inhibi- 
tory factor  in  the  masculine  instinct  of  the  community. 

Another  and  a  similarly  motived  inhibitory  factor  is  the 
sense  of  mystery  with  which  womanhood  impresses  primitive 
man.  Anthropologists  have  analyzed  this  feeling,  and  set 
forth  the  prohibitions  or  taboos  originating  from  it. 

Now  there  is  no  question  that  both  the  fear  of  external 
might  and  the  sense  of  external  mystery  have  infinitely  less 
weight  with  the  collective  masculine  mind  nowadays  than  they 
used  to  have.  The  Male  Principle  is  not  restrained  from  move- 
ment by  the  fear  of  the  selfishness  of  its  stronger  exponents, 
or  by  a  body  of  superstitious  imaginings  in  respect  of  the 
Female  Principle.  It  has  tested  these  restraints:  it  has  re- 
jected some  of  them  so  completely  as  to  have  well-nigh  forgot- 
ten them.  The  heritage  upon  which  it  is  entering  is  a  living 
and  developing  one, — a  sexual  ethic  more  and  more  spiritual 
and  autonomous. 

The  collective  masculine  conscience  now  discerns  special 
limitations  of  the  action  of  the  Male  Principle ;  and  those,  not 
only  such  as  depend  on  the  recognition  of  other  men's  sexual 
rights,  but  such  as  depend  on  the  recognition  of  the  sexual 


^  Cp.  Bloem,  in  Mutterschutz  for  1907,  pp.  194,  195 ;  Ploss  &  Bar- 
tels.  Das  Weib,  Bd.  i,  pp.  687ff. ;  Crawley,  The  Mystic  Rose,  p.  480; 
Westermarck,  Hist,  of  Human  Marriage,  p.  78;  art.  Adultery  in 
Hastings,  Encyc.   Rel.  Eth. 


PROSTITUTION    AND    SOCIETY.  153 

rights  of  women.  Nay  more,  it  is  acquiring  a  power  of  fine 
discrimination  and  particular  evaluation  of  their  rights,  over 
and  above  the  general  recognition  of  them.  We  see,  for  ex- 
ample, that  modern  law  has  gradually  differentiated  the  idea 
of  men's  unchastity  with  young  girls  from  that  of  fornication 
in  general.^  Facts  of  that  kind  indicate  a  certain  psycho- 
logical development,  an  evolution  of  the  moral  sense  inherent 
in  the  collective  masculine  sexual  instinct.  The  Male  Prin- 
ciple is  indeed  in  its  nature,  and  remains,  the  aggressive  agent 
in  the  social  sex  process ;  but  the  masculine  aggression,  or  ad- 
vance to  the  erotic  conquest  of  the  Female  Principle,  tends  to 
become  less  of  a  blind  rush.  The  disciplinary  and  control- 
ling factors  in  the  psychology  of  the  Male  Principle,  of  the 
collective  masculine  mind,  are  acquiring  a  more  conscious 
power. 

And,  correspondingly,  the  Female  Principle  in  humanity 
is  becoming  more  and  more  conscious  and  rational.  It  is  enter- 
ing the  self-conscious  stage  of  its  evolution;  it  is  beginning  to 
make  a  fresh  synthesis  of  its  psychological  factors,  to  bring  the 
various  psychical  elements  of  feminine  sexuality, — the  impulse 
to  attract ;  the  impulse  to  resist  or  retard ;  all  emotions  of  erotic 
longing,  and  all  instinctive  sentiments  and  traditional  ideas  that 
chasten  such  longing;  all  the  force  of  uncalculating  self- 
abandonment  on  the  one  hand,  and  all  the  expectation  of 
justice  and  consideration  on  the  other, — into  a  better  ordered 
combination,  so  as  to  readjust  its  attitude  vis-a-vis  with  the 
Male  Principle. 

Humanity's  experience  is  now  so  large,  that  we  can  make 
an  approximately  just  estimate  of  the  collective  result  of  the 
thoughts  of  particular  epochs  or  generations  about  any 
activity ;  and  by  instituting  comparisons  between  that  result 
and  the  corresponding  spiritual  results  of  other  generations, 
can    come  to   perceive   which   generation   was   the   most   en- 


6  See   an   article,   Unzucht   mit  Kindern,   by   Dr.   Jur.    Kurt   Mar- 
tens,  in   the  Zeitschrift   fiir   Sexuahvissenschaft,   vol.   i,   pp.   193flf. 


154  PROSTITUTION    AND    SOCIETY. 

lightened  in  its  theory  of  the  activity ;  which,  that  is  to  say, 
had  penetrated  farthest  into  the  causation  and  nature  of  the 
phenomena  included  in  it.  And  the  enlightenment  of  the  spirit 
is  the  necessary  condition  of  the  eradication  of  evils,  and  of 
the  production  of  durable  forms  of  happiness. 

Taking  then  the  collective  result  of  the  present-day  femi- 
nine consciousness  of  the  social  sex  process,  the  whole  fruition 
of  the  thoughts  of  women  in  regard  to  that  activity, — whether 
they  be  able  women  or  dull  ones,  conscientious  or  reckless, 
educated  or  ignorant,  receptive  or  prejudiced, — and  comparing 
it  with  past  collective  results  of  the  same  kind,  it  will  as- 
suredly appear  that  on  the  subject  of  the  sex  life  in  humanity, 
with  its  rights  and  its  wrongs,  its  joys  and  its  miseries,  its 
things  of  beauty  and  its  things  of  ugliness,  the  collective  femi- 
nine consciousness  has  been  gradually  filled  with  an  increas- 
ing measure  of  light,  of  hope,  and  of  love.  I  cannot  read 
Ploss  &  Bartels'  great  book  on  women  without  feeling  this." 
The  feminine  mind  has  evolved ;  it  has  become  more  capable 
both  of  reasoning  and  of  feeling.  Consider  the  great  output 
of  literature  on  sex  questions  written  by  women ;  put  it  together 
in  its.  various  literary  departments  and  styles  and  qualities, 
with  its  differing  points  of  view  and  its  special  motives ;  add 
to  it  the  public  utterances  of  women,  especially  in  Germany, 
on  the  same  questions ;  add  to  it,  yet  again,  the  social  work 
which  women  are  doing  in  more  or  less  direct  relation  to  the 
sex  life  in  one  or  other  of  its  aspects.  What  is  the  meaning 
of  it  all  ?  Let  us  put  that  general  question  to  ourselves,  with- 
out asking  in  detail  whether  this  view  or  that  is  well  informed 
or  judicious;  whether  this  woman-writer  has  philanthropic 
motives,  or  that  other  is  inspired  by  wantonness  and  vanity; 
or  how  the  Mother's  Union  compares  ethically  with  the  Mut- 
terschutz  Bund.  For  the  zvhole  meaning  of  this  development 
of  feminine  ethical  activity,  it  must  be  what  I  say, — that  the 
Female  Principle  in  humanity,  the  collective  moral  nature  of 


"'  Ploss  &  Bartels,  Das  Weib  in  der  Natur-  unci  Volkerkunde,  now 
in  its  ninth  edition. 


PROSTITUTION    AND    SOCIETY.  155 

the  female  community,  has  been  struggling  for  generations  past 
into  a  higher  stage,  the  self-conscious  stage  of  its  evolution ; 
so  that  the  confused,  purblind  contact  of  the  Male  and  Female 
Principles  in  society,  which  we  have  illustrated,  in  the  preced- 
ing chapter,  from  the  collective  sexual  experience  of  a  great 
city  given  up  to  pillage,  bids  fair  to  become  enlightened  on 
both  sides,  and  altered  in  character  by  consequence. 

But  though  one  foresees  the  possibility  of  certain  specific 
developments  in  the  social  ethic  of  the  sexes,  in  the  evolution- 
ary stage  on  which  the  two  principles  are  entering,  I  must  de- 
lay the  expression  of  my  own  thought  upon  them.  Yet  if  we 
have  regard  to  the  history  of  prostitution  alone,  it  illustrates 
the  ethical  development  of  the  Female  Principle  well  enough ; 
for  the  collective  feminine  mind,  instead  of  as  formerly  acqui- 
escing in  the  notion  of  the  permanent  necessity  of  that  phe- 
nomenon in  the  general  interests  of  social  purity,  is  gradually 
bringing  to  bear  upon  it  the  remedial  force  which  must  be 
generated  by  sympathetic  understanding,  philanthropic  desire, 
and  a  developed  faculty  of  judgment.  Prostitution  appears  in 
history  as  a  method  of  self-defense,  subconsciously  adopted  by 
the  mass  of  the  female  community.  The  collective  mind  of 
modern  women  perceives,  more  clearly  than  was  formerly  the 
case,  the  modus  operandi  of  this  defense ;  their  collective 
sentiment  is  becoming  more  and  more  conscious  of  discontent 
with  it. 

To  revert  to  the  illustration  given,  that  of  the  ugly  rush 
upon  the  women  of  a  captured  cit}-.  The  moralist  should 
realize  the  psychological  conditions  of  the  rush. 

I  do  not  underrate  the  power  of  the  passion,  the  wild 
force  of  the  delirium  that  drives  men  on.  Neither  do  I  deny 
that  in  the  world's  economy  there  is  and  must  be  a  definite 
masculine  activity,  a  significant  forward  movement  of  the 
Male  Principle  toward  the  Female. 

But  I  urge  that  an  ordered  advance,  a  movement  that 
knows  its  own  rationale  and  partially  discerns  its  real  objective, 
not  only  looks  better,  l)ut  is  more  effective  tb.an  a  confused  head- 


156  PROSTITUTION    AND    SOCIETY. 

long  charge.  Troops  pushing  forward  under  skilled  guidance 
and  firm  control  are  more  likely  to  win  great  victories  than 
such  as  rush  pellmell.  In  truth,  it  is  ordained  that  men  should 
conquer  women ;  nay,  let  us  keep  rather  to  the  broad,  unas- 
sailable truth  of  the  abstract  idea, — it  is  for  the  Male  Prin- 
ciple in  creation  to  achieve  the  conquest  of  the  Female.  To 
the  Male  Principle  belongs  of  right  the  shout  for  mastery, 
while  the  voice  of  the  Female  cries  for  being  overcome.  The 
impulse  to  conquer  inheres  in-  the  catabolism  or  activity  of  the 
male  organism;  whilst  the  female  organism,  in  its  contrasted 
state  of  anabolism,  remains  relatively,  though  not  absolutely, 
passive.  Thus  the  aforesaid  impulse  is  predominantly  mas- 
culine ;  and  although,  in  individual  men  and  women,  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  sex  are  never  fully  expressed  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  each  other,  so  that  in  the  battle  of  love  the  hope  of 
victory  coexists,  in  one  and  the  same  soul,  with  the  delight  of 
being  subdued, — and  that,  too,  in  men  as  well  as  in  women; 
yet  it  is  an  anomaly  when  the  conquering  impulse  does  not  pre- 
ponderate in  the  motivation  of  masculine  love.  It  is  an 
anomaly,  an  exhibition  of  unhealthy  erotic  sentiment,  when 
in  sporadic  cases  the  exponents  of  the  two-  principles  feel  and 
act  in  opposition  to  this  rule  of  the  social  sex  process.  The 
scientists  discuss  this  at  large.^ 

But  what  shall  be  the  manner  and  what  the  abiding  result 
of  the  ordained  victory  of  the  Male  Principle  over  the  Female ; 
and  what  shall  be  the  note  of  the  cry  of  subjection?  Is  not 
the  manner  of  it  indissolubly  bound  up  with  the  principle  of 
chivalrous  self-restraint,  asserting  and  expressing  itself  in  the 
collective  masculine  mind?  Is  not  its  abiding  result  a  spiritual 
triumph  in  which  the  two  erotic  principles  are  both  to  share? 
Is  hot  the  ideal  victory  one  that  crowns  both  vanquished  and 
vanquisher  with  a  glory  held  in  common ;  as  when  Israel's  brav- 


8  E.g.  Forel,  Die  sexuelle  Frage,  p.  244 ;  Havelock  Ellis,  Studies 
in  the  Psychology  of  Sex,  vol.  iii ;  Love  and  Pain,  pp.  92ff. ;  Krafft- 
Ebing,  Psychopathia  Sexualis ;  Fere,  LTnstinct  Sexuel  (E.  tr.),  p.  154; 
Bloch,  The  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time,  ch.  xxi. 


PROSTITUTION    AND    SOCIETY.  157 

est  men,  having  seized  at  length,  by  a  daring  effort,  the  Jebusite 
fortress,  transformed  it  thereafter  into  a  temple  of  beauty  and 
devotion,  a  place  full  of  spiritual  desires,  a  mount  of  heavenly 
promise  ?^ 

Hoffding  propounds  a  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of 
values  in  the  universal  economy ;  and  that  law  will  hold  in 
the  social  sex  process.  The  men  whose  spirit — the  spark  of 
Divinity  in  them — exerts  in  themselves  and  in  aid  of  other 
men  an  effective  but  sympathetic  control ;  the  men  who,  amid 
the  turbulence  of  their  passions,  can  evoke  within  themselves 
a  chivalrous  volition,  an  endeavor  to  refrain  themselves  from 
harming  women — prostitutes  not  excepted ;  in  a  word,  the  men 
who  help  to  steady  the  rush,  those  men  are  forming  the  per- 
manent values  in  the  evolution  of  the  Male  Principle. 

In  licentious  men  there  is  sometimes  visible  an  offensive 
pride  in  virility,  a  cynical  exultation  in  the  number  of  com- 
plaisances they  obtain  from  women.  That  is  a  degenerate 
form  of  a  fundamental  psychological  element  in  the  Male 
Principle,  an  element  capable  of  just  and  noble  development. 
For  virility  is  indeed  a  thing  to  take  a  pride  in;  there  is  joy  in 
the  sense  of  its  power  over  women.  But  that  joy  will  abide 
.only  if  its  primary  factor,  the  consciousness  of  virility,  be 
spiritualized;  if  he  who  experiences  it  learns  to  rate  its 
psychical  elements  higher  than  the  physical.  Scarcely  a  more 
ennobling  joy  is  born  in  men  than  this, — to  know  that  they 
have  won  the  trust  of  women ;  nor  should  any  obligation  be 
stronger,  or  more  welcome  to  a  man,  than  that  of  deserving 
its  continuance. 


0  1  Chron.,  11,  4ff. 


CHAPTER  X. 
Prostitution  and  Rescue  Work. 

Treatment  of  Prostitutes  in  the  Christian  Roman  Empire — Atti- 
tude of  Christian  Fathers  to  Prostitution — Prostitution  in  Medieval 
Europe — Rise  of  Rescue  Work — Attitude  of  Modern  Society  toward 
Prostitution — Rescue  Work  on  its  Negative  Side — Forel's  Descrip- 
tion of  the  Fate  of  Prostitutes — Ideals  of  Rescue  Work — The  Earlier 
Ascetic  Ideal — Its  Insufficiency — The  Modern  Positive  Ideal — Scien- 
tific Study  of  the  Prostitute — The  Worker  of  Mercy  at  Work — 
Social  Value  of  the   Rescue   Workers — The  "White   Slave   Traffic." 

In  the  Christianity  of  the  Roman  Empire  a  certain  amount 
of  work  was  done  among  young  women,  with  a  view  to  com- 
bating prostitution.  But  such  work  was  hmited  to  vigilance, 
protection,  and  prevention. i  It  was  not  rescue  work.  The 
public  prostitute  was  for  long  generally  regarded  as  an  irre- 
deemable outcast,  with  no  claim  on  society's  benevolence ;  at 
most,  a  fit  subject  of  capricious  indulgence,  and — so  soon  as 
her  conduct  manifested  her  as  a  source  of  injury  or  danger 
to  the  public — an  object  of  society's  vengeance.  The  social 
treatment  of  the  prostitute  in  Christian  Europe  was,  in  fact, 
continuous  with  that  accorded  her  imder  the  pagan  empire ; 
and  consisted  in  a  general  toleration  and  attempted  regulation 
of  the  life  of  prostitution,  varied  with  repressive  measures. - 

Some  at  least,  even  of  the  most  prominent  leaders  of 
Christian  moral  sentiment,  felt  and  expressed  the  need  of  a 
certain  degree  of  social  toleration  of  prostitution. ^  Uhlhorn 
remarks :  "It  is  striking  that  both  Salvian  and  Augustine 
approve  of  and  defend  houses  of  ill-fame.  Salvian  says : 
"Minoris  quippe  esse  criminis  lupanar  puto;  meretrices  enim. 


1  Uhlhorn,  Die  christliche  Liebesthatigkeit,  p.  387. 
-  See  Bloch,  Die  Prostitution,  Bd.  i,  ch.  v,  ff. 

3  Uhlhorn,   op.  cit.,  p.  419,   ch.  vi,   n.  75 ;   Havelock   Ellis,   Sex   in 
Relation  to  Society,  pp.  280ff. 

(158) 


PROSTITUTION    AND    RESCUE   WORK.  159 

quae  illic  sunt,  foedus  connubiale  non  norunt.  Ac  per  hoc  non 
mactilant  quod  ignorant."  Augustine  thinks  there  must  be  a 
drain,  so  that  the  whole  house  may  not  be  infected.  The  same 
idea  and  illustration  are  found  in  St.  Thomas  Aquinas. 

In  Medieval  Europe,  public  prostitutes  were  distinguished 
by  peculiar  costumes :  some  municipalities  set  apart  dwellings 
or  quarters  for  them ;  and  their  existence  was  tolerated  by  pub- 
lic opinion  to  such  an  extent  that  in  some  localities  in  Germany 
these  public  women  were  called  "good  prostitutes"  (fromme 
Huren)  in  contrast  with  the  more  dangerous  ones  who  plied 
their  trade  in  secret.'*  In  Ploss  »S:  Bartels,-"'  there  is  quoted  an 
old  (a.d.  1500)  account  of  the  storming  of  a  private  house  of 
ill-fame  by  a  number  of  public  women,  with  the  consent  of  the 
burgermeister. 

Yet,  in  the  general  view  of  Christian  society,  prostitution 
has  been  discerned  with  increasing  clearness  to  be  a  repulsive 
and  dangerous  social  phenomenon.  In  modern  Christian 
thought  the  word  connotes  moral  impurity  and  social  decay ; 
and  if  there  is  as  yet  no  prospect  of  the  disappearance  of  this 
phenomenon  from  our  social  horizon,  it  has  at  least  been 
thrust  back  into  a  less  prominent  position  than  the  one  which  it 
occupied  in  the  great  civilizations  of  antiquity  and  which  it 
still  occupies  in  parts  of  the  East.*^ 


4  Gustav  Wustmann,  quoted  in  Die  Nene  Generation,  no.  2,  p.  71. 

5  Ploss  &  Bartels,  Das  Weib,  Bd.  i,  p.  599. 

••  See  Ploss  &  Bartels,  op.  cit.,  Bd.  i,  pp.  582,  588.  The  word  pros- 
titute has  been  used  with  much  vagueness.  Its  content  is  difficult  to 
define  (Bloch,  Die  Prostitution,  Bd.  i,  ch.  i).  It  popularly  comprises — 
leaving  male  prostitution  out  of  the  question — such  types  as  hetairse, 
or  mistresses,  and  the  hierodules,  or  sacred  prostitutes  of  antiquity 
and  of  some  parts  of  the  Orient.  These  types  have  often  been  very 
well  treated  socially. 

Consequently,  it  is  difficult  to  present  clearly  the  results  of  a 
historical  study  of  prostitution.  However,  the  type  we  have  chietly 
•in  mind  is  the  public  secular  prostitute,  she  who,  according  to  Whar- 
ton's Law  Lexicon,  "indiscriminately  consorts  with  men  for  hire," 
or,  as  Havelock  Ellis  defines  her,  "a  woman  who  tenii)orarily  sells 
(herself)  to  various  persons." 


160  PROSTITUTION   AND    RESCUE   WORK. 

Under  Christianity,  the  more  or  less  reluctant  toleration  of 
prostitution  to  which  I  have  referred  has  alternated,  as  already- 
observed,  with  a  policy  of  forcible  repression,  frequently  in- 
volving the  savage  and  cruel  treatment  of  prostitutes.  Im- 
prisonment'^ and  other  forms  of  punishment,  including  mutila- 
tion,^  were  the  curative  measures  taken  by  Christian  Society 
in  regard  of  the  prostitute,  till  far  on  into  the  Middle  Ages. 
Organized  rescue  work,  on  the  other  hand,  appears  to  date 
from  the  thirteenth  century :  rescue  homes  for  prostitutes 
were  founded  under  Popes  Gregory  IX  and  Innocent  IV  ;^ 
and  that  work  received  a  further  impulse  from  the  mighty 
energy  of  love  which  inspired  the  great  St.  Vincent  de  Paul.i^ 

The  humaner  regard  of  prostitutes  characteristic  of  pres- 
ent-day civilization  indicates,  in  the  view  of  some  writers,  that 
society  is  preparing  for  the  elimination  of  prostitution  by 
socially  elevating  or  rehabilitating  it ;  that  is  to  say,  by  trans- 
muting it  into  a  less  repulsive  phenomenon,  something  re- 
sembling the  hetairism  and  hierodulism  already  alluded  to. 
Havelock  Ellis  notes  this  tendency  ;ii  and  Tlic  Spectator  not 
long  ago  selected  for  its  animadversion  a  passage  from  a  con- 
temporary journal  of  sociology,  in  which  the  matter  was 
eloquently  handled  from  this  point  of  view. 

But  this  tendency  is  really  reactionary.  The  finest  moral 
products  of  sex  love  are  due  to  the  element  of  mutual  re- 
sponsibility present  in  all  such  sexual  unions  as  can  properly 
be  termed  marriage,  and  present  in  the  largest  measure  in 
monogamic  marriage.  In  the  long  run  the  social  conscious- 
ness would  feel,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  has  felt,  dissatisfaction 
with  sexual  unions  from  which  that  element  is  absent ;  and  its 
introduction  even  into  irresoilar  unions  is  the  aim  of   much 


"^  Krauss,  Im  Kerker  vor  und  nach  Christus,  p.  136. 
s  Ploss  &  Bartels,  op.  cit.,  Bd.  i,  pp.  600fif. 

^Zockler,  Askese  und  Monchtum,  p.  517:  K.  Biicher,  Die  Fraiien- 
frage  im  Mittelalter,  p.  62. 

1'^  Krauss,  op.  cit.,  p.  181. 
HO/),  cit.,  p.  316. 


PROSTITUTION    AND    RESCUE   WORK.  161 

modern  legislation.  It  is  indeed  profoundly  true  that,  as 
Havelock  Ellis  observes,  the  facts  of  life  are  more  important 
than  the  forms;  and  future  societies  will  no  doubt  revise  their 
systems  of  marriage  more  and  more  in  the  light  of  this  prin- 
ciple. It  is  because  the  fact  of  mutual  responsibility  is  of 
fundamental  importance  in  the  most  intimate  relations  of  the 
sexes  that  the  educated  social  instinct  of  the  future  will  safe- 
guard it  against  the  destructive  influences  which  radically  dif- 
ferent theories  of  sex  morality  might  exert  upon  it. 

It  seems  safest,  then,  to  follow  the  lead  of  the  Christian 
rescue  workers  in  regard  to  prostitution. 

The  theory  of  rescue  work  as  of  preventive  work  is  easily 
comprehensible  on  its  negative  side ;  it  is  to  get  women  away 
from  that  life  of  prostitution  whose  disastrous  issues  are  suc- 
cinctly stated  by  Professor  Forel :  ^^  "What  now  becomes  of 
the  young  prostitutes  in  course  of  time?  They  cannot  remain 
very  long  in  the  brothels,  for  these  latter — especially  the  more 
luxurious  ones — can  make  use  only  of  young,  blooming,  pretty 
girls.  It  would  be  interesting  to  follow  up  the  fate  of  these 
gfrls.  .  .  .  It  is  clear  that  the  stock  of  girls  belonging  to 
a  brothel  is  after  a  certain  time  always  thrown  back  upon  the 
street  as  a  result  of  the  necessity  of  its  constant  renewal. 
Many  '  prostitutes  are  early  in  life  ruined  by  alcoholism, 
syphilis,  etc.  But  to  many  others  nothing  remains  but  to  be- 
come street  prostitutes,  or  to  ply  their  trade  in  less  expensive 
establishments  and  low  places  in  the  slums.  The  adroiter  and 
more  polished  ones,  who  exhibit  esthetic  skill  or  business 
capacity  in  their  profession,  are  able  to  work  themselves  up 
gradually  to  the  position  of  keepers  of  establishments ;  but 
these  are  only  a  priviliged  few.  Many  end  their  lives  by  sui- 
cide or  in  the  lunatic  asylum.  Most  sum  up  their  life's  experi- 
ences, when  they  have  no  longer  any  attraction  for  men,  by 
taking  up  the  poorest  and  dirtiest  employments.  (The  author 
specifies  a  number  of  poor  trades — at  which,  however,  in  the 


12  Forel,  Die  sexuelle  Frage,  pp.  301,  302, 

11 


162  PROSTITUTION    AND    RESCUE    WORK. 

absence  of  precise  information,  it  is  perhaps  scarcely  fair  to 
point — as  being  the  last  refuge  of  the  broken  prostitute.) 
Here  and  there  a  girl,  superior  to  the  rest  in  worldly  wisdom 
or  in  self-control,  succeeds  in  marrying." 

On  its  positive  side,  the  question  what  is  to  be  done  with 
the  women  extricated  from  this  milieu,  rescue  work  becomes 
manifoldly  tentative  and  difficult.  If,  as  was  apparently  the 
fact,  the  earlier  preventive  work  was  conducted  on  a  principle 
of  cloister-confinement,  this  was  modified  when  rescue  work 
proper  came  into  vogue.  In  the  thirteenth  century,  when  this 
work  was  begun  by  a  priest,  Rudolf,  it  proceeded  indeed  on 
monastic  lines,  the  penitents  being  attached  to  an  order;  yet 
it  was  from  the  first  recognized  that  what  the  reclaimed  pros- 
titute usually  required  was  an  honorable  reinstatement  into 
civil  society.  The  life  of  religious  seclusion  was  reserved  for 
such  penitents  as  proved  to  be  specially  called  to  and  gifted 
for  it. 12  It  resulted,  however,  in  an  age  dominated  by  monas- 
tic ideals,  and  in  which,  owing  to  the  numerical  disproportion 
of  the  sexes,  marriage  often  became  impossible  to  women,  that 
women  were  drawn  too  freely  into  the  general  current  of  the 
convent  life;  and  doubtless  the  presence  in  considerable  num- 
bers of  such  as  had  lived  ill-regulated  lives  contributed  tO'  the 
moral  decline  of  the  convents  in  the  later  Middle  Ages. 

The  more  practically  minded  organizers  saw,  however, 
from  the  first  that  the  marriage  of  the  reclaimed  prostitute 
was  the  goal  to  be  generally  sought;  and  the  idea  was  enun- 
ciated in  the  early  Canon  law,  in  accordance  with  such  a 
Biblical  precedent  as  the  marriage  of  Hosea,  that  to  marry  a 
prostitute  in  order  to  help  her  to  recover  her  purity  was  a 
noble  deed  of  love.i^'^ 


13  Biicher,  op.  cit.,  p.  62. 

13a  Decret.  Greg.  IX,  deb.  iv,  Tit.  i,  ch.  xx.  Endowments  were 
left  with  the  object  of  rewarding  men  who  should  embark  on  the  enter- 
prise of  marrying  a  prostitute  (Biicher,  op.  cit.,  p.  63).  But  medieval 
society  in  general  could  not  accept,  even  in  theory,  this  self-sacrificing 
view;  and  tended  to  penalize  marriage  with  prostitutes.  (Bloch,  Die 
Prost.,  Rd.  i,  p.  674.) 


PROSTITUTION    AND    RESCUE   WORK.  163 

In  the  American  Union  an  organized  campaign,  on  the  scale 
of  vastness  characteristic  of  tiiat  country  and  nation,  is  proceeding 
against  prostitution.  Dr.  Ernst  Schultze,  in  Die  Neue  Generation, 
1913,  has  sketched  the  history  of  this  movement.  It  is  inspired  with 
a  vigorous  optimism,  which  is  an  essential  element  in  higher  human 
activities,  and  which  will  no  doubt  be  justified  by  issues  as  yet  un- 
foreseen. This  reform  movement  has  a  positive  as  well  as  a  negative 
policy.  The  Californian  reformers  formed  plans  and  collected  funds 
for  rescue  institutions  managed  on  modern  educational  lines.  The  aim 
is  to  get  the  rescued  prostitute  into  a  milieu  where  the  suggestion  of 
good  will  be  sufficiently  strong  and  manifold  to  overcome  the  sug- 
gestions of  evil  to  which  she  has  been  exposed.  This  policy  finds 
support  not  only  in  the  general  development  of  sympathy  in  the 
modern  world,  but  in  scientific  estimates  of  the  cause  of  depravity. 
Bloch  thinks  that  the  typical  features  of  the  depravity  of  prostitutes 
are  the  product  in  a  greater  degree  of  the  bad  environment  than  of 
bad  heredity. 

The  permanent  success  of  rescue  work  would  appear  to  be 
quantitatively  small;  from  this  fact  we  gauge  its  difficulty.!^ 

This  work  of  mercy  has  to  be  done  in  the  teeth  of  re- 
sisting forces  whose  power  is  all  the  greater  because  it  is  so 
imperfectly  understood.  Those  forces,  the  factors  which  pro- 
duce and  the  factors  which  sustain  the  social  phenomenon  of 
prostitution,  require,  for  their  estimate  and  analysis,  inductive 
scientific  work  along  a  number  of  lines  of  inquiry.  Psycho- 
logical science  for  the  tmderstanding  of  the  prostitute's  own 
mind,  the  complex  interrelation  of  her  feelings  and  irregular 
development  of  her  passions ;  physiological  science  as  the  cor- 
relative of  the  former  branch ;  economic  science  for  the 
remedial  study  of  the  condition  which  all  the  experts  agree 
to  be  an  operative  factor  of  the  first  importance  in  the  causa- 
tion of  prostitution,  viz.,  poverty ;  medical  science,  where  the 
question  of  hygiene  comes  in ;  and  the  ethical  and  theological 
sciences,  the  function  of  which  is  not  to  negate  the  demon- 
strated conclusions  of  the  others,  but  to  achieve  their  adjust- 
ment in  the  scheme  of  cosmic  truth. 


i^Ploss  &  Bartels,  op.  cit.,  Bd.  i,  pp.  602ff. ;  Booth,  Life  and  Labor, 
etc.,  final  vol.,  p.  127 ;  Forel,  op.  cit.,  pp.  298,  301 ;  Havelock  Ellis, 
op.  cit.,  p.  260. 


164  PROSTITUTION    AND    RESCUE   WORK. 

Schultze,  in  the  articles  just  cited,  says  that  the  two  chief 
requisites  for  the  successful  abolition  of  prostitution  are,  first, 
adequate  methods  of  restoring  prostitutes  to  a  right  HveHhood, 
and,  second,  to  find  the  best  checks  for  the  shpping  downgrade 
first  stage  of  a  prostitute's  career.  He  is  of  my  opinion,  that 
these  tasks  cannot  be  adequately  performed  by  legislation,  but 
only  by  personal  effort,  and  that  such  eft'ort  needs  both  en- 
thusiasm and  knowledge — knowledge  of  the  history  of  the 
whole  subject,  and  that  fine  knowledge  which  gives  the  worker 
tactful  insight  into  individual  cases  and  needs.  It  requires, 
further,  indestructible  faith  and  patience ;  Schultze  emphasizes 
these  qualities ;  and  it  may  be  added  that  they  depend  for  their 
existence  ultimately  on  personal  religion,  on  the  communion 
of  the  soul  with  God. 

Love,  Prayer,  and  Science — Feeling,  Spirituality,  Intel- 
lect— this  hardest  work  of  mercy  calls  for  the  strongest  exer- 
cise of  them  all  three.  But  even  in  its  initial  aspect,  on  its 
primary  negative  side, — the  bare  step  of  withdrawing  the  pros- 
titute from  her  milieu, — no  one  who  has  ever  made  or  wit- 
nessed an  attempt  in  this  direction  will  conceive  of  this  work 
of  mercy  as  forming  part  of  the  program  of  a  simple  Gospel. 
It  is  so  far  above  the  heads  of  the  majority  of  professing 
Christians  that  they  rarely  bestow  upon  it  even  an  expression 
of  sympathetic  interest,  much  less  give  an  attentive  and  intelli- 
gent consideration  to  the  methods  by  which  it  is  carried  on. 
Those  who  have  been  privileged  to  watch  the  steps  by  which 
a  Christian  lady  catches  a  prostitute  with  loving  guile,  drawing 
her  for  a  time  at  least  from  her  environment — such  an  en- 
vironment as  is  pictured  in  the  studies  of  scientists  like  Have- 
lock  Ellis  or  Professor  Forel — will  at  least  have  had  before 
them  a  psychological  study  of  the  most  impressive  interest. 
The  whole  business  is  a  fine  exhibition  of  moral  energy  on  the 
part  of  the  rescuing  w^oman.  From  first  to  last,  it  may  well  be 
a  year  or  even  several  years  before  her  own  part  in  the  work 
of  mercy  reaches  its  fulfillment,  and  the  case  passes  for 
future  supervision  into  other  hands.     During  that  time  her 


PROSTITUTION    AND    RESCUE   WORK.  165 

will  is  concentrated  into  an  effort  so  manifold  and  so  sustained 
that  it  is  dififiicult;  to  find  language  which  will  describe  it  to  the 
reader  as  it  actually  is.  For  this  lady's  refinement  must  come 
into  living  contact  with  social  phenomena  in  which  sexuality 
appears  not  merely  as  careless,  impulsive,  animal  passion,  but 
as  fevered  and  diseased  obscenity.  She  has  to  safeguard  her 
own  dignity,  as  she  feels  her  way  toward  the  object  of  her 
saving  love.  She  may  know  full  well  the  conditions  in  which 
the  girl  is  living,  and  yet  not  be  in  possession  of  just  the  evi- 
dence which  would  secure  for  her  the  co-operation  of  the 
police  and  the  law.  Thus  the  spiritual  force  which  she  can 
bring  to  bear  upon  her  work  of  mercy  is  supported  by  no 
physical  force  whatever.  She  must  steal,  in  her  philanthropic 
quest,  upon  the  prey  she  has  marked,  availing  herself  of  every 
moment  of  security,  of  every  temporary  protection  that  may 
offer  itself. 

In  her  first  endeavors  to  get  in  touch  with  the  prostitute 
or  (in  the  case  of  a  young  girl)  with  the  persons  who,  how- 
ever unworthy,  are  yet  her  legal  guardians,  it  is  possible  or 
rather  probable  that  no  success  will  be  achieved ;  that  she  will 
receive  a  cold,  perhaps  a  rude  and  coarse  rebuff;  and  the 
whole  matter  will  seem  to  come  to  an  end,  or  stand  over  in- 
definitely. Sometimes,  indeed,  the  rescuing  lady  will  carry  her 
point,  as  it  were,  by  storm;  not  indeed  by  any  suggestion  of 
social  force  brought  into  play  by  the  laws,  for,  as  I  have  said, 
such  a  course  is  probably  out  of  the  question ;  but  by  spiritual 
and  moral  force,  the  force  which  is  not  generally  perceived  as 
force  at  all.  That  is  to  say,  by  the  extraordinarily  persuasive 
grace  with  which  these  rescuers  are  endowed  and  which  the 
practice  of  their  special  work  of  mercy  brings  to  a  high  de- 
gree of  trained  efficiency ;  by  the  sweet  earnestness  of-  her 
manner,  by  the  keen  insight  and  gentle  adroitness  with  which 
she  perceives  and  touches  all  that  gives  the  least  good  promise 
in  the  coarsened  souls  with  whom  she  is  dealing;  by  the  sense 
and  soundness  of  the  arguments  she  employs  to  convince  the 
girl  of  the  improvement  in  her  general  prospects  if  she  will 


166  PROSTITUTION    AND    RESCUE   WORK. 

come  away ;  by  the  tact  with  which  she  avoids  direct  rehgious 
exhortation,  and  yet  somehow  leaves  her  Hsteners  with  the 
consciousness  that  what  she  says  is  full  of  the  spirit  of 
religion ;  by  the  impression  she  conveys  that  she  is  at  once 
intensely  sympathetic  with  human  trials  and  yet  never  averts 
her  eyes  from  the  highest  moral  ideals  of  the  sex;  life;  in 
short,  by  a  great  and  varied  effort  of  moral  power,  she  may, 
as  the  result  of  one  or  two  interviews,  in  an  hour  or  in  a  day 
or  two,  cause  the  prostitute  to  break  from  her  life  and  submit 
her  diseased  nature  to  new  influences. 

But  if  such  an  onset  of  saving  love  is  ineft'ectual,  the  lady 
will  change  her  plans  without  relinquishing  her  purpose.  In 
the  performance  of  her  work  of  mercy,  she  will  now  mani- 
fest unconquerable  patience  and  unremitting  vigilance.  She 
will  watch  the  case  from  afar,  keeping  herself  informed  of  its 
history,  holding  herself  in  readiness  to  step  in  at  the  next 
conjunction  of  circumstances  which  seems  favorable;  casting 
her  thoughts  round  to  find  some  one  whose  sympathies  will 
be  active  and  intelligent,  and  whose  co-operation  will  be  dis- 
creet and  helpful  in  the  matter. 

The  psychic  and  nervous  strain  of  the  work  will  be 
severe;  nor  would  it  be  seemly  in  this  place  to  attempt  to 
describe  what  can  never  be  described,  the!  inner  activity  of  tb.e 
rescuing  woman's  own  soul,  the  unseen  counterpart  of  her 
visible  energy,  the  spiritual  effort  of  faith  in  and  prayer  for  the 
Divine  counsel  and  providence  and  aid, — those  operating  fac- 
tors in  the  deed  of  mercy,  whose  action  is  as  incalculable  as 
it  is  certainly  existent. 

These  workers  of  mercy  may  not  indeed  have  under- 
stood the  full  relation  of  the  question  of  prostitution  to  the 
sex  li'fe  at  large.  They  may  have  but  a  very  limited  acquaint- 
ance with  the  great  range  of  moral  problems  presented  by  the 
phenomenon  of  sex.  They  may  as  yet,  from  ignorance  or 
misunderstanding,  leave  out  of  their  calculations,  or  on  a  priori 
grounds  refuse  to  consider,  solutions  of  sex  problems  which 
students  of  those  problems  have  put   forward,   as  the  result 


PROSTITUTION    AND    RESCUE   WORK.  167 

of  the  free  criticism  of  tradition.  Their  work  may  be,  with  all 
its  value,  but  a  single  factor  in  the  process  by  which  prostitu- 
tion is  being  eliminated  from  the  sex  life  of  mankind. 

Yet  if  the  educated  moral  sense  of  society  can  trust  its 
own  value-judgments  at  all,  there  cannot  fail  to  be  a  deep 
significance  in  the  tribute  of  honor  accorded  to  the  rescue 
worker  with  a  practical  unanimity  on  the  part,  not  of  indif- 
ferent and  thoughtless  Christians,  but  of  all  alike — Christians 
and  non-Christians — who  take  the  trouble  to  give  any  earnest 
thought  to  the  hard  and  painful  problems  of  the  sex  life.  In 
my  own  reading  on  this  matter,  I  have  found  many  differences 
of  opinion  on  various  points  connected  with  the  social  hand- 
ling of  prostitution ;  and  not  a  few  charges  and  counter- 
charges pass  between  the  moralists  and  scientists  of  both  sexes, 
who  study  sex  and  the  sex  life  from  different  points  of  view. 
lUit  I  think  I  am  right  in  saying  that  if  to  the  whole  body  of 
thinkers  and  writers  on  sexual  subjects, — the  clergy,  with 
habits  of  thought  and  feeling  subconsciously  formed  by  con- 
fessional influences ;  the  medical  scientists,  whose  discoveries 
often  seem  at  first  to  perplex  and  dash,  yet  always  in  the  event 
illuminate  ethical  counsels;  the  learned  anthropologists;  the 
able  women,  who  face  sex  questions  with  the  daring  which 
belongs  to  feminine  passion  aroused  by  the  love  of  justice, — 
if  to  all  these  the  question  were  fairly  and  squarely  put,  "Do 
you  consider  that  Christian  rescue  work  among  prostitutes  is 
a  thing  of  moral  and  social  value?  Do  you  admit  that  the 
workers  of  mercy  in  that  field  deserve  your  personal  sym- 
pathy and  support  and  honor  ?" ;  then  those  men  and  women 
would  find  themselves  in  full  agreement  for  once ;  they  would 
all  reply  that  that  work  is  indeed  of  capital  value  to  humanity 
in  the  whole  evolution  of  its  sexual  ethic;  that  those  workers 
do  indeed  deserve  all  the  respect  and  help  that  can  be  given 
them  by  souls  of  inferior  moral  endowments,  but  conscious  like 
them  of  an  objective  idea  of  indefinable  beauty  striving  to 
realize  itself  in  the  moral  world,  the  idea  of  Holiness. 

Dr.  Havelock  Ellis,  speaking  of  prostitution  in  its  socially 


168  THE    WHITE-SLAVE   TRAFFIC. 

dangerous  aspect  of  an  incubator  of  disease,  remarks,  with 
the  use  of  an  apt  metaphor,  on  the  inadequacy  of  such  a  social 
resistance  to  prostitution,  as  consists  merely  in  unintelligent 
denunciation  or  in  a  prudish  apathy  which  tries  to  justify 
itself  by  an  appeal  to  conventional  propriety. !•"•  Such  methods 
are  like  trying  to  operate  with  the  blunt  end  of  a  wedge  in  a 
work  where  a  peculiarly  fine  and  tempered  edge  is  needed  to 
effect  an  entrance  at  all. 

To  my  way  of  thinking,  if  one  may  give  to  Dr.  Havelock 
Ellis's  metaphor  a  more  general  application  in  the  prostitution 
question,  the  fine  edge  of  the  wedge  is  the  Christian  worker 
of  mercy,  if  she  is  such  as  I  have  seen  and  endeavored  here 
to  portray.  Psychologically,  she  is  what  is  needed  at  the  fore- 
front of  a  social  movement  against  prostitution.  Whatever 
the  larger,  weightier  social  forces  at  her  back  may  ultimately 
effect  for  the  abolition  of  prostitution,  she  at  any  rate  must 
be  kept  to  the  fore.  She  must  be  backed  up  with  all  needful 
things,  with  prayer  and  sympathy,  with  money,  with  public 
respect,  with  judiciary  encouragement,  with  all  that  the 
rest  of  society  can  think  of,  to  sustain  and  increase  her 
effectiveness. 

Of  recent  years,  public  interest  in  prostitution  has  been 
largely  focussed  on  the  so-called  White  Slave  Traffic;  indeed, 
there  is  a  possibility  of  this  sensational  aspect  of  the  question 
obscuring  other  aspects  of  not  less  social  importance.  An 
enormous  body  of  literature  has  gathered  around  the  subject ; 
but  it  can  be  only  briefly  considered  here. 

Historically  speaking,  a  vast  change  has  come  over  the 
White  Slave  Traffic,  a  change  which  gives  us  hope,  while  it 
calls  us  to  vigilance.  In  antiquity,  the  determining  factor  in 
the  traffic  was  Force.  Bloch  has  vividly  and  with  great  learn- 
ing described  the  operation  of  this  factor,  showing  that  the 
slave-prostitutes    of    the    ancient    civilizations    were    mainly 

15  0/'.   cit.,  p.   342. 


THE   WHITE-SLAVE   TRAFFIC.  169 

prisoners  of  war.i*»  Nowadays,  the  determining  factor  is 
Craft,  a  fact  which  at  once  indicates  that  the  interests  pro- 
moting the  trade  have  become  relatively  weaker.  Some  of  the 
sensational  stories  current,  about  the  decoy  and  capture  of  girls 
for  prostitution,  have  probably  been  invented  to  stimulate  pub- 
lic interest  and  procure  legislation. i'''  But  a  British  consul  in 
Europe  has  told  me  of  cases  occurring  in  his  own  term  of 
office,  of  girls  disappearing  and  failing  to  be  traced ;  and  the 
cynically  immoral  conversation,  in  French,  of  a  party  of 
foreigners  in  an  English  train  not  long  since,  convinced  me, 
being  unavoidably  their  auditor,  that  such  people,  though  they 
did  not  indeed  actually  announce  themselves  as  agents  of  the 
traffic,  were  capable  of  almost  any  callousness  and  cruelty 
toward  the  victims  of  prostitution. 

As  during  the  classical  paganism  the  men  of  a  nation  had 
to  protect  their  women  against  the  forcible  aggression  which 
was  continually  threatening  to  herd  them  into  the  white-slave 
market,  so  modern  men  have  to  exercise  vigilance  and  firmness 
against  the  harpies  who  work  by  craft  and  fraud  for  the  same 
object.  The  near  future  will  see  the  further  development  in 
detail  of  this  policy.  I  shall  here  detain  the  reader  over  one 
point  only,  the  corporal  punishment  of  male  procurers.  This 
drastic  measure  has  been  incorporated  into  the  new  law,  at 
any  rate  in  England ;  but  in  some  important  quarters  it  meets 
with  disapproval;  and  Havelock  Ellis,  in  the  article  just  cited, 
ranges  himself  with  the  objectors. 

It  is  sufficient  here  to  make  the  general  observation  that 
while  experimentation  in  the  infliction  of  pain  is  certainly  bad 
punition,  as  the  experience  of  the  Middle  Ages  proves — when 
pain  was  fruitlessly  exploited  in  numberless  ways,  for  the 
repression  of  crime;  yet  it  does  not  follow  that  pain  is  to  be 
wholly  excluded  from  punition.     The  particular  infliction  now 

1"  Bloch,  Die  Prostitution,  I'd.  i.  pp.  239ff. 

1'^  See  Mrs.  Billington-Greig's  article  in  The  English  Review, 
quoted  by  Havelock  Ellis,  Der  Kampf  gegen  den  Madchenhandel 
(Die  Neue  Gen.,  Jahrg.  9,  Heft.  9). 


170  THE    WHITE-SLAVE   TRAFFIC. 

in  question,  viz.,  flogging,  has  before  now  been  effective  as  a 
deterrent  with  criminals  whose  moral  sense  had  resisted  every 
other  appeal.  Further,  since  the  flogging  is  stringently  regu- 
lated, it  cannot  degenerate  into  a  cruel  excess  of  punishment ; 
and  since  it  is  inflicted  by  men  on  men,  the  danger  of  its  con- 
taining an  algolagnic  stimulus  is,  if  not  inconceivable,  at  least 
remote.  The  opposition  to  flogging  in  this  connection  and 
within  these  limitations  seems,  accordingly,  insufiiciently 
grounded;  though  it  would  indeed  be  a  welcome  development 
of  punition,  if  it  should  be  proved  possible  wholly  to  reject 
the  factor  of  pain. 

Indignation  against  the  agents,  and  sympathy  with  the 
victims,  of  this  traffic,  must  not  blind  us  to  the  difficulties  pre- 
sented by  the  folly,  vanity,  and  obstinacy  of  these  latter.  I 
have  known  young  women  flout  every  advice  and  persuasion, 
and  attach  themselves  to  male  acquaintances  casually  picked 
up  in  a  railway  journey.  I  have  known  a  girl  arrive  in  this 
countryi^  as  an  utter  stranger  and  lodge  with  a  woman  of 
dubious  reputation,  who  gave  her  a  bedroom  without  lock  or 
bolts  to  the  door,  and  in  a  lonely  part  of  the  house.  I  suc- 
ceeded in  that  case  in  getting  the  girl  home.  Moreover,  res- 
cue-workers know  well  that  besides  the  pressure  and  bullying 
that  keep  prostitutes  to  their  degraded  life,  an  incomprehen- 
sible devotion  to  apparently  worthless  men — the  same  blind 
passion  which,  in  other  social  strata,  sometimes  guides  even 
highminded  women  in  their  choice  of  husbands — has  to  be 
taken  account  of.^^  It  is  interesting;  it  is  pathetic;  it  is  in  a 
manner  admirable ;  it  may  subserve  unknown  issues  in  the 
economy  of  the  universe ;  but  it  is  an  awkward  fact. 


18  France. 

19  Cp.  an  article  by  Charles  Crittenton  in  The  Woman's  World, 
quoted  in  II  Rogo,  ann.  x,  no.  9. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

.  Venereal  Disease  and  Legislation. 

Statement  of  the  Question — Modern  Ethical  Thought  and  Prosti- 
tution— The  Problem  of  Reglementation — The  Morals  Service — A 
Policy    Outlined — Venereal    Diseases    and    Marriage. 

Prostitution  comes  into  notice  in  this  chapter  as  the 
most  effective  means  of  spreading  certain  loathsome  and  dan- 
gerous forms  of  disease ;  for  in  comparatively  modern  times 
this  aspect  of  the  matter  has  acquired  a  gloomy  prominence. 

The  experience  of  history  forbids  us  to  entertain  hopes  of 
the  imminent  disappearance  of  prostitution,^  and  it  therefore 
becomes  our  object  to  form  a  policy  by  which  its  attendant 
physical  dangers — dangers  by  no  means  confined  to  its  guilty 
patrons — may  be  minimized,  and  which  at  the  same  time  con- 
serves and  develops  the  only  attitude  responsible  thinkers  hold- 
ing high  moral  ideals  and  taking  a  wide  view  of  life  can  ever 
assume  toward  prostitution  on  ethical  grounds — an  attitude  of 
reprobation. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  as  yet  any  one  aspect  of  this  prob- 
lem has  been  fully  solved.  Reglementation,  or  the!  sanitary 
regulation  of  prostitution,  has  its  difficulties  on  the  medical 
side.  The  practical  inadequacy  of  periodic  medical  examina- 
tions conducted  amid  conditions  of  great  difficulty  in  large 
centers  of  population  has  been  frequently  demonstrated.  Such 
examinations  to  be  effective  require  not  only  a  considerable 
degree  of  skill  on  the  part  of  the  examiner,  but  expensive 
medical  appliances  and  time  in  which  to  make  full  use  of  them. 
Where  these  conditions  have  been  wanting,  men  have  been 
known  to  become  infected  by  prostitutes  who  have  only  re- 


1  Miss  Jane  Addams  thinks  that  an  "irreducible  minimum  of 
prostitution  will  doubtless  long  exist."  (A  New  Conscience  and  an 
.Ancient   Evil,  p.  9.) 

(171) 


172  VENEREAL    DISEASE   AND    LEGISLATION. 

cently  left  the  physician's  examining  room.  The  proper  con- 
duct of  these  examinations  is,  therefore,  a  matter  of  great 
expense,  which  would  he  defrayed  by  the  community  at  large 
only  with  considerable  reluctance. 

But  were  the  practical  difficulties  of  reglementation  the 
only  ones  they  would  not  be  insurmountable.  Medical  meth- 
ods in  the  future  will  doubtless  receive  improvement  and  sim- 
plification, to  the  increase  of  effectiveness  and  the  diminution 
of  expense ;-  and  with  regard  to  the  ill  grace  with  which,  it  is 
alleged,  the  community  would  bear  an  expense  created  by  the 
profligacy  of  a  section,  it  must  be  observed  that  the  community 
already  bears  analogous  expenses,  bearing  the  burdens  im- 
posed by  the  follies  and  willfulness  of  some  of  its  members. 
It  should  not  and  would  not  make  the  case  of  the  reglemen- 
tation of  prostitution  an  exception.  This  burden  with  the 
rest  it  would  accept  from  its  governments,  provided  that— 
this  is  indeed  a  most  necessary  proviso— adequate  and  unre- 
mitting efforts  were  made  by  the  sanction  and  with  the  co- 
operation of  governments  for  the  continual  reduction  of  this 
burden.  Such  efforts  belong  to  the  departments  of  moral  sua- 
sion, of  rescue  and  reclamation  work,  of  the  repression  of 
aggressive  prostitution,  of  the  protection  and  control  of 
minors.  These  and  kindred  efforts  may  be  made  simultane- 
ously with  a  modified  and  carefully  framed  policy  of  regie- 
mentation.  The  clearer  ideas  formed  by  modern,  as  con- 
trasted with  ancient  and  with  medieval  society,  of  its  duty 
toward  the  prostitute  herself,  urge  the  performance  of  this 
manifold  obligation,  the  fulfillment  or  neglect  of  which  is  also 


2  It  is  for  medical  experts  to  determine  what  progress  has  been 
made,  by  newly  discovered  methods  of  diagnosis  and  treatment, 
toward  the  victory  over  syphilis  which  Bloch  forecasted  some  years 
ago  (Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time,  pp.  385ff.).  An  article  by  Dr.  Des- 
peignes  in  the  Esperanto  magazine  Kuracisto  for  July,  1913,  describes 
the  Wassermann  reaction  as  not  infallible,  but  very  useful  for  diag- 
nosing syphilis  in  the  second  or  third  period.  "^Esculapius"  in  The 
Shield,  Ap.,  1915,  summarizes  recent  discoveries  in  this  field. 


VENEREAL   DISEASE   AND    LEGISLATION.  173 

seen  vitally  to  affect  the  general  welfare  of  the   community 
for  good  or  for  ill. 

The  authors  of  the  New  York  report  on  the  "social  evil" 
appear  to  magnify  the  difficulties  involved  in  the  attempt  to 
find  a  legal  basis  for  reglementation.  In  their  anxiety  to  em- 
phasize the  fact  that  in  the  modern  conception  the  prostitute 
still  remains  a  citizen,  they  manifest  an  excessive  tenderness 
in  regard  to  her  liberty,  and  while  enumerating  the  objections 
to  particular  theories  of  legal  compulsion  as  applied  to  pros- 
titutes, push  overmuch  into  the  background  the  general  truth 
that  human  society  may  and  does  pass  laws  for  the  regulation 
and  control  of  sexual  relations.  The  idea  of  liberty  can  be 
used  only  too  readily  in  democratic  communities  as  a  hindrance 
to  social  reform,  and  when  set  forward  in  this  connection  needs 
careful  scrutiny.  Some  kind  of  legal  supervision  of,  and  on 
occasion  some  measure  of  legal  interference  with  sexual  con- 
duct, in  the  interests  of  social  welfare,  has  been  a  recognized 
function  of  the  social  organism  from  the  earliest  dawn  of 
human  history.  The  existence  of  this  function  is  a  funda- 
mental principle  of  social  life,  however  varied  and  difficult  it 
may  be  in  its  application. 

H.  G.  Wells  (A  Modern  Utopia,  ch.  vi,  Fort.  Rev.,  Feb.,  1905) 
finds  considerable  difficulty  in  -maintaining  his  general  position  that 
the  State  has  no  concern  with  the  sexual  morality  of  the  adult  citizen, 
except  in  relation  to  parentage.  He  imperfectly  estimates  the  influ- 
ences which  afifect  the  future  of  the  species.  His  principle  in  its 
practical  application  would  seem  to  foster  an  increase  in  the  abuse  of 
neomalthusian  methods;  and  by  narrowing  the  social  purport  of  mar- 
riage would  tend  to  depreciate  that  institution  in  the  popular  esti- 
mation, and  thus  to  affect  unfavorably  the  future  of  mankind.  It  is 
a  more  correct  description  of  the  State  function  in  this  matter,  to 
hold  that  the  State  must  recognize  certain  limitations  in  dealing  with 
se.xual  immorality.  Wells  himself,  among  his  own  modifications  of 
the  principle  he  enunciates,  allows  an  aggrieved  wife  to  invoke  the 
assistance  of  the  State  in  dealing  with  her  husband's  adultery.  {Cp.  the 
remarks  of  C.  Gasquoine  Hartley,  op.  cit.,  p.  338.) 

The  inference  of  present  importance  is  that  legal  inter- 
ference is  justified  in  regard  to  prostitution,  when  prostitution 


174  VEXEREAL   DISEASE   AND   LEGISLATION. 

threatens  society's  welfare  by  becoming  aggressive,-'^  e.g.,  by 
manifesting  itself  as  the  chief  agent  for  spreading  venereal  dis- 
ease.    Such  interference,  indeed,  needs  the  most  careful  con- 


^Cp.  The  Social  Evil  (Putnam),  pp.  147 ff.,  where  aggressive 
methods  are  described.  The  suppression  of  ordinary  solicitation  in 
the  street  presents  special  difficulty,  both  in  ethical  theory  and  in 
social  practice,  as  is  shown  in  the  same  book,  p.  87,  n.  7;  for  it  may 
be  urged  that  if  the  law  recognizes  limitation  to  its  action  in  regard 
of  prostitution  at  all,  it  must  logically  recognize  such  limitation  in 
regard  to  solicitation,  since  that  is  a  primary  necessity  of  the  pros- 
titute's trade.  It  is  clear,  however,  that  the  principle  here  laid  down 
— the  right  of  the  law  to  combat  aggressive  prostitution — does  justify 
arrests  for  solicitation;  for  the  law  has  a  positive  interest  in  checking 
the  spread  of  prostitution  (the  increase  of  its  life  proportionately 
to  the  general  sexual  life  of  the  community),  and  a  negative  interest 
in  its  bare  existence.  The  needful  proviso  in  regard  to  that  prin- 
ciple is  that  it  shall  be  discreetly  and  variably  applied.  It  is  an 
exhibition  of  social  firmness;  it  does  not  justify  social  harshness.  If 
a  woman  is  arrested  for  soliciting,  her  case  should  be  dealt  with  on 
its  general  merits.  The  aim  of  the  law  in  reference  to  the  life  of 
the  community  is  what  has  been  stated  above,  its  protection  against 
expansive  prostitution:  in  relation  to  the  woman  herself,  the  law, 
qua  law,  has  no  positive  aim.  Its  care  in  reference  to  her  should  be 
that  at  least  it  puts  no  additional  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  moral 
reformation  of  that  woman,  a  reformation  which,  ex  hypothesi,  it 
cannot  itself  effect,  but  which  may  be  effected  by  the  instrumentality 
of  the  workers  of  mercy.  And  it  will  depend  on  the  particular  nature 
and  circumstances  of  the  case  whether  the  sequel  of  the  arrest  of 
the  soliciting  woman,  which  will  best  fulfill  above-mentioned  posi- 
tive and  negative  aims  of  the  law,  is  a  discharge  with  a  caution  or 
a  term  of  detention.  Furthermore,  just  as,  in  the  case  of  the  White 
Slave  business,  we  noted,  as  a  sign  of  general  moral  amelioration, 
that  the  traffic  is  maintained  no  longer  as  of  old  by  open,  defiant,  and 
forceful  methods,  but  by  craft;  so  it  is  with  prostitution  in  general. 
Its  open  aggressions  are  by  way  of  being  reduced;  but  its  craft  is 
marvellous.  It  again  takes  the  field  under  various  disguises.  Flex- 
ner  (Prostitution  in  Europe,  pp.  306ff.)  gives  numerous  specimens  of 
brothel  advertisement  afforded  by  London  alone.  To  watch  and  repress 
these  attempts,  without  being  driven  by  panic  or  impatience  into 
injustice  toward  the  genuine  activities  with  which  they  pretend  to 
identify  themselves,  is  the  duty  which  devolves  on  the  defenders  of 
morality  at  this  point  of  the  vastly  extended  battle-line. 


VENEREAL    DISEASE   AND    LEGISLATION.  1/5 

sideration  as  to  its  methods  and  limits.  Constant  vigilance  is 
requisite  lest  the  mor^l  members  of  the  community  should  be 
subjected  to  annoyance  and  damage  at  the  hands  of  a  morals 
service  w^hich  is  obliged  to  use  suspicion — the  suspicion  of  the 
propagation  of  disease — as  one  of  the  chief  methods  of  its 
working,  and  stringent  measures  should  be  adopted  to  prevent 
the  willful  misdirection  of  suspicion. 

Much  as  these  aspects  of  the  matter  require  thought,  the 
moral  question  connected  with  reglementation  is  still  more 
difficult. 

The  existing  intellectual  confusion  on  this  subject  centers 
round  the  attitude  which  governments,  while  promoting  sani- 
tary measures  with  the  object  of  repressing  disease,  are  con- 
strained to  take  up  in  respect  of  the  general  question  of  pros- 
titution. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  if  a  secular  government  should 
adopt  a  definitely  antichristian  policy  in  the  handling  of  social 
problems,  the  collective  Christian  consciousness  ought  to  com- 
bat such  a  policy,  at  least  by  spiritual  methods. 

Examples  of  such  a  policy  are  forthcoming  from  the 
early  history  of  reglementation.  The  old  pagan  civilizations 
attempted  reglementation.'*  They  not  only  regulated,  but  fos- 
tered prostitution.  The  problem  presented  to  modern  govern- 
ments, such  as  recognize  the  impossibility  of  realizing  Chris- 
tian ideals  by  legislation,  yet  determine  that  legislation  shall  at 
least  not  obstruct  their  realization,  is  how  to  eliminate  from 
reglementation  the  antichristian  factor,  the  patronage  of  pros- 
titution. 

Would  such  legislation,  it  is  asked,  be  immoral,  in  that, 
while  attempting  to  remove  a  physical  evil,  the  result  of  pros- 
titution, or  at  leasf  greatly  intensified  and  increased  by  pros- 
titution, it  leaves  prostitution  itself  still  in  existence  as  a  social 
phenomenon?  Is  it  an  immoral  government  which  announces 
its  position  in  the  matter  thus :    "Tlie  community  may  look  to 


4  Bloch,  Die  Prostitution,  Bd.  i,  p.  439. 


176  VENEREAL    DISEASE   AND   LEGISLATION. 

us  for  the  suppression  of  prostitution  where  it  becomes  ag- 
gressive ;  where  it  forces  itself  upon  pu^Hc  notice  by  disorder, 
by  importunity,  by  disease ;  but  the  wholesale  suppression  of 
prostitution  cannot  be  efifected  by  a  civil  government  with  ad- 
vantage to  the  morals  of  the  community"  ? 

If  this  is  a  tenable  position — and  to  some  such  position 
the  generality  of  conscientious  thinkers  on  the  subject  seem 
to  be  arriving,^  it  forms  a  basis  on  which  to  frame  a  policy  for 
opposing  preventive  legislation  to  the  spread  of  venereal  dis- 
ease, although  in  the  carrying  out  of  such  a  policy  many  com- 
plicating circumstances  would  have  to  be  taken  into  considera- 
tion, and  the  practical  application  of  even  a  just  and  right 
theory  may  prove  to  be  fraught  with  many  difficulties. 

A  good  deal  of  real  value  attaches  ta  the  aphorism,  "Men 
cannot  be  made  moral  by  Act  of  Parliament."  Such  aphor- 
isms are  usually  the  fruit  of  centuries  of  experience,  and  this 
one  has  a  close  and  important  bearing  on  the  matter  now  under 
consideration.  It  seems  to  allow  a  government  to  define  its 
position  in  the  manner  suggested  above.  Are  we  right,  it 
forces  us  to  ask,  in  expecting  from  governments  more  than 
comes  within  the  scope  of  their  functions  ?  They  can  deal  with 
a  matter  like  the  spread  of  physical  disease ;  against  that  they 
can  wield  the  weapons  furnished  by  human  legislation,  but  the 
whole  vast  phenomenon  of  sexual  immorality  is  more  than  they 
can  cope  with  successfully.  History  demonstrates  this ;  we 
have  no  warrant  in  human  experience  for  expecting  govern- 
ments to  execute  work  which  requires  a  more  delicate  moral 
machinery  than  theirs,  the  machinery  of  personal  contact  and 
example,  of  sympathetic  and  judicious  education,  of  religious 


5  See  The  Social  Evil.  The  principles  of  regulation  and  aboli- 
tion are  now  in  fact  blending  in  a  common  policy,  and  the  end  of  the 
controversy  between  them  is  in  sight ;  though  particular  issues  may 
well,  for  an  indefinite  time,  need  watching.  The  idea  of  regulation 
has  been  greatly  modified  in  its  applications.  Abolitionism  has  been 
extended  to  include  a  positive  policy.  (See  esp.  Flexner,  Prostitu- 
tion in  Europe). 


VENEREAL   DISEASE   AND   LEGISLATION.  177 

influence  and  control.  It  is  incorrect  to  imagine  that  if  a 
government  uses  its  police  system  with  some  discrimination  as 
regards  prostitution,  only  employing  this  weapon  in  the  case 
already  indicated,  where  prostitution  is  in  one  way  or  another 
aggressive,  it  is  thereby  throwing  open  the  door  to  illicit  sexual 
love. 

That  door  has  never  been  shut  through  the  long  ages  of 
human  history.  No  human  legislation  can  shut  it.  Should 
any  government  formulate  a  contagious  diseases  policy  on 
lines  which  this  essay  is  an  attempt  to  indicate,  its  action  need 
not  be  construed  as  implying  an  acquiescence  in  the  existence 
of  prostitution.  It  is  unnecessary,  in  the  wording  of  such  an 
act,  to  use  any  such  phrase  as  "State  toleration"  or  "recogni- 
tion" of  brothels. *5  The  general  question  of  prostitution  is 
not,  so  far,  touched  by  government.  All  that  we  could  justly 
infer  from  the  enunciation  of  such  a  policy  by  a  government  is 
that  it  perceives  a  limit  to  its  powers  and  responsibilities  in 
the  moral  sphere;  it  recognizes  a  point  beyond  which  the 
action  of  governments  cannot  go,  a  region  where  more  subtle 
forces  than  those  of  human  legislation  can  alone  effectually 
operate.  The  act  would  not  attack  the  broad  principle  always 
recognized  by  Christian  society,  that  lawful  sexual  intercourse 
cannot  be  found  in  fornication.  It  would  not  be  an  attempt 
to  weaken  the  obligation  to  chastity,  imposed  by  the  moral 
law.  It  would  have  to  be  regarded  as  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  an  attempt  to  get  rid  of  certain  physical  evils,  frequently 
affecting  innocent  persons,  which  prostitution  helps  to  inten- 


^  It  seems  gratuitous  to  import  any  considerations  of  sophistry 
here.  In  a  policy  such  as  is  here  contemplated  even  the  idea  of  tolera- 
tion does  not  become  prominent,  so  long  as  the  State  encourages  and 
assists  efforts — short  of  police  compulsion — for  the  general  reduction 
of  prostitution.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  State  is  regarded 
by  a  large  portion  of  the  community  as  an  educator;  and  its  policy, 
therefore,  properly  enunciated,  while  defining  the  limits  of  legal  action, 
should  not,  and  I  venture  to  think  need  not,  lend  support  to  what  is 
rightly  recognized  as  a  fallacious  generalization,  the  necessity  of  pros- 
titution. 

12 


178  VENEREAL   DISEASE   AND   LEGISLATION. 

sify  and  extend.  This,  the  sole  aim  of  such  an  act,  must  not 
be  confused  by  careless  wording  or  strained  interpretation, 
with  other  issues  of  the  great  sexual  problem. 

The  general  question  of  prostitution  must  be  approached 
by  education  and  by  moral  and  religious  influence,  not  by  legis- 
lation. Laws  may  deal  with  symptoms  of  the  phenomenon, 
such  as  those  we  have  been  considering;  they  may  protect 
to  some  extent  juvenile  and  helpless  classes,"  but  they  cannot, 
in  any  sweeping,  wholesale  fashion,  abolish  fornication.  The 
responsibility  for  the  existence  of  prostitution  rests  with  indi- 
viduals, not  with  governments.  It  is  unwise  and  dangerous  to 
attempt  to  shift  this  responsibility  on  to  the  shoulders  of  gov- 
ernments. 

The  exact  form,  including  details,  which  government 
interference  on  this  question  ought  to  take  would  vary  some- 
what with  circumstances.  A  great-  conflict  of  opinion  is  still 
in  progress  as  to  the  rights  of  a  system  of  compulsory  ex- 
amination and  detention  of  persons  suffering  from  venereal 
disease.  Figures  and  results  are  pointed  to  by  both  sides,  with 
the  respective  objects  of  commending  and  of  discrediting  the 
system.  So  far  as  the  figures  are  accessible  to  the  present 
writer,  they  seem  to  prove,  not  that  the  principle  of  compul- 
sion by  government  in  this  matter  is  wrong,  but  that  right 
methods  of  applying  that  principle  and  embodying  it  in  legisla- 
tion have  as  yet  been  only  partially  discovered.  Some  of  the 
past  legislative  experiments  for  the  suppression  of  venereal 
diseases  appear  to  have  failed  to  produce  satisfactory  results 
because,  as  in  France,  they  have  been  made  in  such  a  way  as 
to  weaken  the  claims  of  morality ;  others  because  in  them  the 
principle  of  compulsion  has  been  applied  with  too  little  tact 
and  discrimination,  as  formerly  in  Sweden,  or  in  regard  of  one 
sex  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other,  as  formerly  in  England. 

This,  then,  is  the  point  at  which  to  enlarge  our  considera- 


"^  Governments  are,  in  fact,  learning  by  experiment  how  to  per- 
form this  function.  K.  Rupprecht  compares  the  French  with  the 
German  methods,  in  Die  N.  G.,  Jahrg.  10,  Heft  2. 


VENEREAL    DISEASE   AND    LEGISLATION.  179 

tion  of  the  argument  already  referred  to,  that  apart  from  the 
consideration  of  statistics  and  results,  the  principle  now  under 
discussion  is  inherently  wrong.  It  is  urged  that  a  government 
cannot  place  venereal  diseases  on  the  same  footing  as  other 
diseases  for  treatment,  because  in  the  case  of  venereal  diseases 
a  moral  question  is  involved. 

There  is  an  element  of  truth  in  this ;  but  it  must  not  be 
inferred  that  governments  are  to  have  no  hand  at  all  in  the 
treatment  and  remedy  of  venereal  diseases.  So  long  as  a  gov- 
ernment, to  the  best  of  its  power,  refrains  from  touching  the 
moral  question,  so  long  as  it  avoids  the  reality  or  even  the  ap- 
pearance of  becoming  a  purveyor  of  clean  prostitutes  for  the 
lust  of  immoral  persons,^  there  seems  no  reason  why  it  should 
not  undertake  the  task  of  healing  diseased  ones  by  a  hospital 
system  in  the  working  of  which  a  principle  of  compulsion  con- 
stitutes a  factor.  The  older  method  of  employing  this  prin- 
ciple was  simple  detention,  the  lock  hospital ;  the  humaner 
feeling  and  larger  knowledge  of  today  enforce  submission  to 
treatment  by  exhibiting  the  dangers  involved  in  going  without 
it.  These  dangers  may  include  some  kind  of  disability,  or  in 
some  countries  punishment,  consequent  on  the  patient  becom- 
ing a  source  of  infection ;  so  that  while  the  hospital  manage- 
ment cannot  order  a  patient  to  stay,  they  may  show  with  reason 


■^  Or  of  a  landlord  or  licensing  agent  of  buildings,  whether 
brothels  or  houses  of  accommodation,  in  which  the  business  of  pros- 
titution is  to  proceed  unchecked.  But  the  proposal  made  by  C.  Booth 
(Life  and  Labor,  final  vol.,  pp.  128ff.)  is  so  framed  as  to  be  free 
from  this  objection.  It  is  on  the  negative  side  that  reglementation 
seems  ethically  justifiable.  Prohibitions  should  be  the  basis  of  the 
policy.  The  State  should  proceed  by  directly  forbidding  and  re- 
pressing prostitution  in  any  of  its  aggressive  aspects,  yet  not  by  in 
any  way  indicating  the  directions  in  which  prostitution  can  maintain 
itself  without  coming  into  collision  with  the  law.  The  onus  of  dis- 
covering those  directions  should  rest  with  the  persons  interested  in 
prostitution.  In  short,  while  the  State  cannot  directly  suppress  forni- 
cation, it  may  so  frame  its  contagious  diseases  policy  as  not  only  not  to 
encourage,  but  indirectly  to  discourage  it  and  to  make  it  more  diffi- 
cult of  access. 


180  VENEREAL    DISEASE   AND    LEGISLATION. 

that  imprisonment  or  expulsion  will  be  the  probable  conse- 
quences of  leaving  or  giving  up  attendance.  Respect  for 
liberty  need  not  carry  us  farther  than  that ;  in  fact,  it  is  diffi- 
cult not  to  think  tha't  larger  powers  of  detention,  if  exercised 
discreetly  and  in  conjunction  with  more  far-reaching  activities, 
might  again  prove  valuable  in  solving  the  venereal  and,  we  may 
add,  the  somewhat  analogous  inebriate  question. 

For  example,  in  the  case  of  the  cantonments  of  troops  in 
India,  it  does  not  fall  within  the  competence  of  the  authorities 
to  preclude  entirely  the  existence  of  prostitution  within  the 
cantonment.^  It  is  not  possible  for  them  to  make  sure  of  the 
character  and  motives  of  every  native  woman  who  wishes  to 
reside  in  the  cantonment  or  its  proximity.  It  is  only  when, 
by  disease  or  solicitation  or  self-advertisement  or  other 
method,  prostitution  becomes  aggressive,  that  they  can  directly 
attack  it.  Even  then,  under  the  existing  regulations,  the  atti- 
tude of  the  authorities  is  in  the  highest  degree  forbearing 
toward  misdoing,  sympathetic  with  infirmity,  careful  of  liberty. 
The  only  hold  over  venereal  patients  permitted  to  the  manage- 
ment of  hospitals  is  the  kind  of  quasi-compulsion  just  referred 
to;  an  infected  woman,  for  example,  must  either  submit  to 
treatment  or  be  expelled  from  the  cantonment. 

While  the  patient  has  been  under  treatment  every  pos- 
sible facility  should  have  been  given  to  clergy  and  benevolent 
persons  to  consider  the  moral  aspect  of  the  particular  case,  and 
to  bring  good  influence  to  bear  in  the  direction  and  by  the 
methods  which  may  seem  most  expedient  and  most  likely  to 
ensure  success.!^    If  any  course  of  medical  treatment  is  known 


9  The  most  thoroughgoing  abolitionists  recognize  the  impos- 
sibility of  suppressing  prostitution  entirely.  The  correspondence  given 
in  the  pamphlet,  Our  Army  in  India,  closes  on  the  abolitionist  side 
with  the  admission  that  it  was  not  proposed  to  prohibit  the  residence 
of  prostitutes  within  cantonment  limits,  but  only  to  suppress  brothels, 
i.e.,  collective  organizations.  The  distinction  is  not  clear,  and  does 
not  constitute  a  satisfactory  principle  of  action. 

10  Commenting  on  the  special  difificulties  of  rescue  work,  Booth 
(Life  and  Labor,  final  vol.,  pp.  126,  127)   observes  that  a  sense  of  sin 


VENEREAL   DISEASE   AND    LEGISLATION.  181 

to  be  effectual  in  diminishing  sexual  desire,  and  to  be  other- 
wise harmless,  that  too  should  be  employed.  It  is  when  the 
period  of  detention  under  medical  supervision  is  over,  then 
comes  in  the  danger  that  the  action  of  the  authorities,  if  the 
case  be  shown  meanwhile  to  be  that  of  a  known  prostitute, 
may  clash  with  the  interests  of  morality.  If  a  prostitute, 
cured  of  venereal  disease,  is  again  allowed  to  enter  a  canton- 
ment which  she  may  have  frequented  previously  to  her  admis- 
sion to  hospital,  it  may  be  argued  with  considerable  cogency 
that  by  extending  such  permission  the  authorities  thereby  place 
themselves  in  a  false  position — that  of  purveyors  of  clean 
prostitutes,  to  facilitate  the  indulgence  of  the  troops  in  forni- 
cation. On  the  other  hand,  if  the  prostitute,  when  cured,  is 
forbidden  to  enter  the  cantonment  or  tO'  approach  within  a 
certain  distance  from  its  boundaries,  under  penalties  likely  to 
prove  a  sufficient  deterrent,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  the  govern- 
ing power  can  in  such  a  case  have  exceeded  its  right,  the  right 
of  combating  aggressive  prostitution ;  or  how  it  can  have  made 
light  of  the  moral  question  'with  which  venereal  disease  is 
associated. 

Therefore,  as  regards  Indian  prostitutes,  who  form  a 
caste,  it  would  seem  that,  in  any  case,  once  a  prostitute  has 
been  before  the  authorities  in  that  character,  she  ought,  cured 
or  not  cured,  to  be  forbidden  that  particular  cantonment.  If 
expelled  uncured  she  should  be  and  is  reported  elsewhere  as 


is  little  discoverable  among  prostitutes.  The  moral  perceptions  are 
dull  to  begin  with,  in  the  class  from  which  prostitutes  are  ordinarily 
recruited,  and  even  the  first  fall  evokes  little  but  a  vague  feeling  of 
shame  and  loss.  Still,  according  to  the  same  writer,  even  profes- 
sional prostitutes  manifest  often  a  considerable  dissatisfaction  and 
disgust  with  their  position,  a  general  sense  of  degradation.  Here,  it 
would  seem,  is  the  readiest  approach  to  the  prostitute's  inner  self, 
with  its  dormant  potentialities  of  good.  The  lady  already  referred  to, 
in  conversation  with  the  author,  emphasized  the  value  of  letting  the 
lowest  prostitute  feel  that  in  the  social  strata  above  her  own  there 
existed  some  degree  of  real,  even  if  ineffective,  interest  in  her  re- 
demption and  welfare. 


182  VENEREAL   DISEASE   AND    LEGISLATION. 

an  infected,  i.c.^  presumably  dangerous  and  aggressive  prosti- 
tute. If  discharged  cured  it  might  be  prudent  to  notify  the 
authorities  of  other  cantonments  of  the  fact ;  but  it  would  no 
longer  be  necessary  to  warn  against  her  as  aggressive  in  the 
sense  contemplated  in  the  present  chapter.  That  point  would 
be  a  matter  for  the  vigilance  of  the  other  cantonments  afore- 
said ;  if  indeed  the  woman  ever  got  to  them  at  all. 

The  policy  to  be  adopted  for  dealing  with  prostitution  in 
cities  will  not  be  in  every  detail  the  same  as  that  which  might 
be  applied  in  cantonments.  It  might  not  be  possible  to  expel 
cured  prostitutes  from  the  city,  but  a  special  watch  could  be 
kept  over  women  who  had  been  discharged  from  a  hospital, 
and  who  during  their  residence  there  had  been  discovered  and 
proved  to  be  prostitutes.  It  would  indeed  be  immoral  to  issue 
to  such  women  a  government  certificate  of  health,  as  this 
would  amount  to  sanctioning  their  trade ;  but  the  authorities 
might  keep  a  private  register  of  these  cases,  as  being  suspicious 
and  dangerous,  likely  to  develop  and  spread  disease ;  in  other 
words,  likely  to  become  aggressive. ^^  The  function  of  the  state 
in  this  matter  seems  to  extend  thus  far. 

It  was  somewhat  on  these  lines  that  reglementation  was 
reorganized  in  Berlin  in  1846.  The  authors  of  The  Social 
Evil  draw  particular  attention  to  the  fact  that  government  in- 
terference with  the  control  of  prostitution  did  not  cease  at  that 
date,  though  they  assumed  forms  less  exceptionable  from  a 
moral  point  of  view  than  the  previous  ones.i-  But  the  Berlin 
morals  and  sanitary  service  of  1846  did  not  receive  a  fair 
trial.     It  was  not  worked  with  proper  thoroughness  and  en- 


li  This  is  the  method  in  England.  The  London  police  are  in- 
structed to  report  the  names  of  women  acting  like  prostitutes  (Flex- 
ner.  Prostitution  in  Europe,  p.  302).  Such  registration  is,  from  the 
abolitionist  point  of  view,  unexceptional ;  because  under  this  system 
it  is  not  permitted  to  inscribed  prostitutes  to  do  things  which  are  for- 
bidden to  the  uninscribed.  Measures  are  taken,  not  against  pros- 
titutes as  such,  but  against  forms  of  prostitutional  aggression  (id. 
op.,  pp.  289,  296). 

12  The   Social   Evil,  pp.  48,  49. 


HEALTH    CERTIFICATION.  183 

thusiasm;  and  later  on  there  was  a  return  to  more  doubtful 
methods.  Viewed,  however,  in  conjunction  with  the  recom- 
mendations of  the  Committee  of  Fifteen  in  The  Social  Evil, 
the  Berlin  policy  of  1846  must  be  welcomed  as  giving  a  prece- 
dent for  a  state  treatment  of  the  problem  of  prostitution  by 
methods  which  both  moralists  and  sanitary  reformers  can 
unite  in  developing  and  rendering  more  efficacious. 

There  has  at  length  been  evolved  in  Norway,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  venereal  question,  a  policy  to  which,  in  view  of 
its  restrained  application  of  the  principle  of  compulsion,  not 
even  the  Abolitionist  Federation,  with  all  its  anxious  vigilance, 
appears  to  take  exception. i-''  A  similar  system  obtains  in 
Denmark.!-'' 

It  will  be  generally  admitted  that  Forel's  description^-^  of 
the  terrible  evils  of  prostitution  is  by  no  means  overdrawn, 
and  the  methods  'of  reglementation  he  describes  are  doubtless 
to  be  condemned  as  inadequate ;  but  his  indictment,  considered 
in  relation  to  his  admission  that  nothing  but  a  gradual  diminu- 
tion of  prostitution  can  be  expected  from  any  policy,  proves 
no  more  than  that  the  State,  in  dealing  with  this  phenomenon, 
must  define  its  own  moral  position  distinctly.  We  are  brought 
no  farther,  in  fact,  than  the  general  position  taken  up  in  the 
present  chapter. 

Another  question,  to  which  attention  has  of  late  been  im- 
peratively called  in  more  than  one  work  of  literary  art^-^^ — 
venereal  disease  in  relation  to  marriage,  calls  for  consideration 
before  the  conclusion  of  the  present  chapter.  Several  modern 
writers  recommend  that  men  should  be  required  to  obtain  a 
medical   certificate   of    freedom    from   syphilis,   gonorrhea,   or 


12a  See  Morals  and  Public  Health,  Report  of  the  1914  Conference 
of  the  International  Abolitionist  Federation,  pp.  348f. 

12b  H.  Ellis,  op.  cit.,  p.  344. 

13  Forel.  op.  cit.,  pp.  286ff.  (ed.  10,  pp.  337 f(.). 

13a  One  of  the  most  powerful  of  these  is  Brieux's  play,  Les 
Avaries.  It  is  now  published  in  La  Feuille  Litteraire,  and  can  be 
bought  for  a  penny. 


184  HEALTH    CERTIFICATION. 

other  contagious  disease  of  the  genitals,  before  receiving  the 
state  hcense  to  marry.  The  suggestion  is  attractive,  as  it  re- 
moves the  reproach  often  brought  against  the  sanitary  service, 
that  it  deals  only  with  women  in  the  matter  of  venereal  disease. 

Such  a  measure  as  the  examination  of  men  before  mar- 
riage would  indeed  require  careful  safeguarding.  All  attempts 
to  institute  legal  hindrances  to  marriage  and  establish  a  state- 
enforced  celibacy  are  of  doubtful  expediency,  and  need  special 
consideration.  The  decision  of  one  state-appointed  medical 
officer  should  not  be  final  in  a  matter  of  this  kind;  a  subject 
who  believes  his  certificate  wrongly  withheld  should  have  some 
right  of  appeal.  The  physical  examination  should  not  be  ex- 
tended to  cover  other  general  morbid  conditions,  e.g.,  phthis- 
ical conditions,  nor  even  to  include  weakness  of  the  genital 
organs ;  for  partial  impotence  in  the  male,  the  result  of  mas- 
turbation or  nervous  strain,  tends  to  recover  itself  in  the  mar- 
ried state. 1^ 

But  with  such  safeguards,  the  suggestion  seems  right  and 
feasible  enough.  Such  a  physical  examination  before  mar- 
riage could  not  indeed  safely  be  extended  to  women ;  for  many 
of  the  best  women  would  probably  be  deterred  from  marriage 
altogether  by  the  thought  of  having  to  undergo  this  ordeal. 
At  any  rate,  even  granting  (as  statistics  adduced  by  Neisser 
demand)  the  existence  of  a  number  of  venereal  patients  among 
female  candidates  for  marriage,  the  time  is  not  yet  ripe,  the 
sexual  education  of  the  community  not  yet  sufficiently  ad- 
vanced, the  number  of  women  doctors  not  yet  -large  enough,  to 
encourage  the  consideration  of  such  a  proposal  in  regard  to 


14  Although  medical  science,  as  expounded  by  Posner  (Senator 
and  Kaminer,  op.  cit.,  vol.  ii,  pp.  728,  729),  sees  in  extreme  stages  of 
sexual  weakness,  when  the  exciting  causes  have  been  a  long  time  in 
operation,  a  contraindication  to  marriage,  it  would  be  inadvisable  to 
give  this  view  a  severe  social  expression ;  for  the  reason  that  the 
percentage  of  such  cases  does  not  seem  large  enough  in  this  class  of 
sexual  infirmity,  nor  the  lines  of  demarcation  between  fitness  and 
unfitness  for  marriage  sufficiently  pronounced,  to  justify  the  imposition 
of  legal  disabilities. 


HEALTH    CERTIFICATION.  185 

women.  But  men  would  not  be  oversensitive  in  such  a  matter, 
any  more  than  they  would  shrink  from  a  medical  examination 
as  a  preliminary  to  life  insurance.  And  even  in  cases  where 
the  certificate  is  withheld,  a  temporary  celibacy  only  would 
frequently  be  required;  seldom  would  it  happen  that  the  State 
required  of  anyone  a  permanent  abstinence  from  marriage — a 
principle  which,  as  already  affirmed',  is  undesirable  and  un- 
workable. 

On  a  purely  medical  question,  a  non-medical  writer  must  speak 
with  a  due  sense  of  his  limitations.  The  optimistic  judgment  given 
above  is  perhaps  only  justified  (as  concerns  gonorrhea,  and  the  posi- 
tion is  analogous  in  regard  to  syphilis)  if  we  take  up  the  position  of 
Neisser,  who  holds  (Senator  and  Kaminer,  vol.  ii,  pp.  495ff.)  that 
so  long  as  after  the  most  exhaustive  examination  possible,  gonococci 
do  not  reveal  themselves,  infection  is  not  to  be  anticipated,  though 
its  possibility  cannot  categorically  be  denied ;  and  marriage  is  conse- 
quently permissible ;  inasmuch  as  marriages  have  frequently  been  re- 
corded in  which  some  of  the  secondary  effects  of  gonorrhea  con- 
tinued, without  communication  of  the  disease  resulting.  Even  if 
medical  science  can  do  no  more  than  affirm  the  improbability  of  in- 
fection, the  principle  of  certification  would  be  useful  as  ensuring  that 
diseased  men  had  submitted  themselves  to  expert  and  adequate  treat- 
ment before  marriage;  and  a  check  would  at  least  be  placed  on  the 
reckless  and  selfish  marriage  of  such  persons.  It  is  certainly  impor- 
tant to  emphasize  that  any  such  measures  as  are  here  in  question, 
should  be  based  on  the  most  lenient  principle  and  administered  in  the 
most  liberal  spirit  possible,  consistent  with  a  reasonable  degree  of 
efficaciousness. 

And  in  spite  of  Neisser's  objection,  it  would  seem  that  the  State 
could  look  after  this  matter  better  than  the  intending  parties  to  a 
marriage  themselves.  Many  women,  from  want  of  realizing  the  im- 
portance of  the  issue  involved,  and  from  the  emotional  power  of  their 
own  erotic  passion,  would  not  be  deterred  from  marrying  a  man,  even 
if  he  had  to  show  them  an  unsatisfactory  certificate  of  'health.  They 
would  decide  the  point  from  subjective  considerations.  The  State 
on  the  other  hand  would  look  to  an  objective  standard  of  health, — 
ex  hypothesi,  the  demonstrable  absence  of  gonococci, — in  permitting 
men  to  marry. 

Obviously,  to  require  a  certificate  of  freedom  from  the 
said   morbid  conditions  before   marriage   would   not   entirely 


186  HEALTH    CERTIFICATION. 

solve  the  question  of  venereal  disease  among  men ;  for  these 
diseases  are  frequently  contracted  as  a  result  of  adultery;  but 
this  latter  aspect  of  the  matter  must  be  considered  in  connec- 
tion with  the  dissolubility  of  marriage.  It  should  be  estab- 
lished as  a  broad  principle  of  action  that  persons  of  either  sex, 
married  or  single,  who  transmit  venereal  disease  may  be 
legally  restrained  and  confined  for  treatment.  If  cases  of 
syphilis  in  infants  were  required  to  be  reported  by  doctors,  it 
would  become  more  practicable  to  detect  the  existence  of 
venereal  disease  in  marriage  and  to  bring  measures  to  bear 
upon  it. 

Although  the  principle  of  compulsion,  in  reference  to 
notification,  to  the  detention  of  infected  persons  or  the  pro- 
hibition of  their  marrying,  is  viewed  with  little  favor  by  many 
who  are  well  qualified  to  speak,  it  does  not  seem  wholly  dis- 
credited. Society  is  undoubtedly  right  in  showing  firmness 
toward  people  who  refuse  the  curative  aid  which  science  has 
enabled  it  to  offer,  and  selfishly  continue  to  disseminate  disease 
of  this  kind. 

Nevertheless,  voluntary  submission  to  regulations  having 
the  suppression  of  venereal  disease  as  their  object  is  in  every 
w^ay  preferable  to  compulsion. i-'  Not  only  should  patients 
feel  that  if  they  willingly  fall  in  with  the  regulations  they  are 
consulting  their  own  best  interests  as  regards  health,  but  they 
should  know  that  registration  and  treatment  will  be  conducted 
with  proper  privacy  and  consideration. i^    These  are  especially 


15  Uneducated  men,  as  would  naturally  be  expected,  show  less 
readiness  than  the  educated  in  availing  themselves  of  medical  assist- 
ance to  ascertain  their  marriageableness,  in  view  of  their  having  con- 
tracted venei'eal  diseases.  Neisser,  it  is  true,  considers  that  the  dis- 
semination of  right  knowledge  has  produced  an  improvement  in  this 
respect  in  the  last  twenty  years.  But  the  question  still  presses 
whether  legislation  might  not  embody  some  general  principle  in  re- 
gard to  the  certification  of  sexual  health  as  a  necessary  preliminary 
to  marriage. 

16  The  following  are  among  the  suggestions  which  have  been 
made   in   the   direction    of   leniency   of   treatment :  to   abandon   oppro- 


HEALTH    CERTH^ICATIOX.  187 

necessary  in  regard  to  married  patients.  The  innocent  partner 
(probably  the  wife)  would  in  many  cases  dread  shame  and 
discord  more  than  actual  disease;  and  so  would  assist  the  hus- 
band in  hiding  his  sin,  to  the  great  physical  detriment  of  them 
both. 

It  is  urged — apart  from  the  special  question  of  a  marriage 
certificate  of  health — that  the  tradition  of  secrecy  in  medical 
ethics  would  be  a  hindrance  to  the  treatment  of  male  patients 
by  compulsory  periodic  examination.  Doctors,  when  con- 
sulted by  a  male  venereal  patient  who  might  have  received 
the  contagion  from  one  fall  and  be  otherwise  of  good  char- 
acter, would  shrink  from  breaking  a  confidence  and  so  bring- 
ing shame,  not  merely  on  the  patient  himself,  but  on  the  inno- 
cent household  to  which  he  belongs.  His  case  seems  to  demand 
greater  privacy  and  consideration  than  that  of  a  known  prosti- 
tute. But  here  the  tradition  of  secrecy,  excellent  in  itself,  be- 
comes of  dubious  worth.  In  a  matter  of  such  grave  sanitary 
importance,  society,  acting  through  the  doctors  as  its  executive, 
cannot  afford  to  be  too  considerate,  i"     Cases  of  venereal  dis- 


brious  designations  for  venereal  hospitals  and  wards,  in  the  same  way 
as  the  term  "mental  hospital"  is  now  often  substituted  for  "asylum" ; 
to  refrain  from  harassing  inquiries  as  to  the  occasion  of  infection ;  to 
employ  the  out-patient  system  as  far  as  is  prudent ;  and,  generally,  to 
make  it  clear  that  the  cure,  not  the  detention,  of  patients  is  the  pri- 
mary object  of  a  hospital  system,  and  to  make  all  aspects  of  the 
process  of  treatment  as  effectively  remedial  and  as  little  penal  as 
possible.  Such  measures  would  encourage  the  voluntary  seeking  ot 
treatment ;  and  some  of  them  might  be  made  conditional  upon  that 
course  being  chosen. 

1"  Nothing,  however,  is  farther  from  my  intention  than  to  de- 
preciate medical  secrecy.  It  is  far  too  valuable  to  be  spoken  of  with 
anything  but  reverence.  It  is  a  tradition  to  be  conserved  with  as 
little  modification  as  possible,  if  any.  In  the  notification  of  venereal 
diseases  it  is  not  always  necessary  that  names  should  go  beyond  the 
doctor  consulted  (Cp.  H.  Ellis,  <?/>.  cit.,  vol.  vi,  p.  343).  There  is 
room  here  for  the  working  of  the  discretionary  factor.  Suppose 
a  qualified  doctor  has  a  given  number  of  cases  under  treatment. 
Society,    expressing    itself    through    the    morals    service    or    centra! 


188  A    WORK   OF   MERCY. 

ease  should  be  reported  to  a  central  authority.  A  properly 
organized  morals  service  should  be  able  to  deal  with  cases  as 
they  arise,  with  all  possible  privacy,  tact,  and  consideration. 
And  after  all,  innocent  households  frequently  have  to  sutler 
shame  in  many  forms  from  the  delinquencies  of  particular 
members.  Often,  too,  in  spite  of  their  innocence,  such  house- 
holds are  not  so  much  to  be  pitied  on  these  occasions  as  they 
seem.  A  misdemeanor  in  the  family  involving  medical  treat- 
ment or  legal  action,  has  usually  its  roots  in  the  folly,  igno- 
rance, sloth,  or  misdirected  tenderness  of  the  parents.  The 
sexual  education  of  their  children  is,  as  we  have  seen,  a  para- 
mount duty  of  parents;  and  such  education  must  of  course 
include  a  warning  given  opportunely  against  the  various 
forms  of  venereal  disease,  and  about  the  ill-health  and  dis- 
abilities contagion  involves — a  warning  which  does  not  always 
relieve  from  the  duty  of  further  watchfulness. 

I  have  dealt  elsewhere  with  sexual  education,  which,  as 
Ellis  observes,  is  the  final  and  most  important  factor  in  the 
resolution  of  the  social  problems  of  sex.  The  present  is  not 
the  place  to  deal  with  it  in  extcnso.  But  the  following  illus- 
tration of  this  work  of  mercy^'^  may  be  found  instructive, — 
all  the  more  so,  as  containing  an  element  of  surprise  : — 

I  was  told  that  a  boy  in  whom  I  was  interested  was  likely 
to  be  sent  to  a  situation  in  Paris ;  and  was  further  told  that  he 
was  quite  "innocent"  in  the  popular  sense,  i.e.,  ignorant  of  sex- 
ual things.  I  thought  the  latter  assertion  very  improbable,  for  I 
knew  he  had  been  about  a  great  deal  with  boys  and  men ;  and 
I  had  myself  spoken  to  him,  though  in  no  great  detail,  about 
these  things,  when  preparing  him  for  Confirmation. 


authority,  has  confidence,  ccctcris  paribus,  in  him.  Only  it  expects 
him  to  protect  itself,  as  well  as  succor  his  patient;  and  some  societies 
penalize  the  doctor  if  he  ignores  the  former  duty.  If,  therefore, 
he  has  good  reason  for  doubting  whether  a  patient  is  so  far  following 
his  directions  as  to  be  innocuous  to  society,  he  may  elect  to  report  that 
patient  by  name. 

IS  To   instruct  the   ignorant  is  the   first   spiritual   work  of   mercy, 
according  to  the  Catholic  scheme. 


A   WORK   OF   MERCY.  189 

However,  as  I  did  not  remember  just  how  much  I  had 
said  or  how  far  he  had  taken  it  in,  I  sent  for  him,  and  soon 
got  into  the  subject.  I  found,  as  I  expected,  that  my  inform- 
ant's estimate  of  his  ignorance  was  quite  wrong.  The  boy 
knew  about  the  danger  of  venereal  disease.  He  quoted  the 
French  colloquial  term  for  gonorrhea.  He  knew  about  the 
French  system  of  licensing  brothels. 

I  told  him  that  as  he  was  going  out  into  the  world  I  was 
glad  he  knew  about  these  matters ;  and  that  I  had  been  uneasy, 
thinking  he  didn't  know  enough  to  be  on  his  guard.  He 
thanked  me,  as  young  people  nearly  always  do,  when  they  see 
that  an  older  person  is  trying  to  advise  them  well  and  truly 
about  things  of  such  close  concern. 

Then  I  asked  who  had  told  him  about  these  things.  He 
said  it  was  the  French  workmen  in  whose  company  he  was 
continually.  "They  talk  about  these  things  a  great  deal ;  but 
then  you  know  Fm  lucky  to  have  met  those  that  talk  about 
them  in  the  right  way." 

I  agreed  with  him,  and  said  I  thought  that  spoke  well  for 
his  friends  among  the  French  workmen. 

Then  he  said,  "And  women  talk  about  these  things  quite 
openly  in  this  country."  He  told  me  that  one  day  in  the  office 
a  young  married  lady  had  spoken  to  him  about  coming  to 
Paris,  and  had  gone  on  to  warn  him  freely  and  fully  about  the 
sexual  dangers.  He  said,  with  a  smile,  'T  don't  know  how 
she  could  speak  of  it  all  to  me ;  but  she  did" ;  and  he  seemed 
to  think  that  she  had  done  it  very  well. 

I  said,  "There's  one  thing  about  that  you  ought  to  think 
of.  It  must  have  been  difficult  for  her,  as  you  say,  to  speak 
of  such  things  to  a  young  fellow ;  and  she  wouldn't  have  said 
all  that  to  you,  if  she  hadn't  seen  that  you  are  trustworthy 
and  right-minded,  and  would  take  it  respectfully  from  her. 
So  don't  you  forget  that  conversation.  When  women  trust  us, 
it  puts  us  on  our  honor." 


190  A    WORK    OF   MERCY. 

It  was  thus  I  tried  to  follow  up  and  confirm  the  work  of 
mercy  which  the  young  French  lady  had  boldly  done. 

For  a  fine  model  of  instruction  for  men  on  this  subject, 
we  may  cite  Lord  Kitchener's  Memorandum  for  soldiers, 
printed  in  the  Soldier's  Small  Book.i^ 


19  See  Our  Army  in   India,  published  by  the   British   Abolitionist 
Federation. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Further  Applications  of  the  Principle  of 
Responsibility. 

Suspected  Increase  of  Immorality  in  Australasia — Causes  of  In- 
crease— Some  Proposed  Remedies — Age  of  Consent — Removal  of  Dis- 
abilities from  Illegitimates — Legitimation — Registration  in  the  Man's 
Name. 

Even  yet  the  moment  has  not  arrived  in  our  present  study, 
when  illicit  heterosexual  relations,  the  aspect  of  the  sex  life 
which  has  hitherto  claimed  the  largest  share  of  our  attention, 
can  be  quitted  for  another  part  of  the  subject.  The  following 
chapter  was  written  some  years  ago,  when  the  author  was  resi- 
dent in  New  Zealand  and  to  some  extent  in  touch  with 
Australasian  life;  and  although  its  interest  is  by  consequence 
primarily  local,  it  is  retained  as  a  contribution  to  the  discus- 
sion of  certain  points  hitherto  undealt  with  in  this  work. 

An  increase  of  illicit  intercourse,  apart  from  prostitution, 
has  been  suspected  in  the  British  Australasian  Colonies,  per- 
haps elsewhere ;  and  it  faces  society  with  a  menace  which  fre- 
quently engages  a  good  deal  of  popular  attention  in  the  news- 
papers and  elsewhere.! 


1  After  careful  inquiry  the  writer  finds  sufficient  evidence  that  of 
recent  years  intercourse  out  of  wedlock  has  tended  toward  an  actual 
increase  in  parts  of  Australasia.  Trustworthy  evidence  is  derivable 
mainly  from  the  statistics  of  birth ;  and  the  question  as  to  the  increase 
of  illicit  intercourse  in  proportion  to  the  growth  of  population  is  not 
easily  settled,  owing  to  the  undoubted  prevalence  among  married  peo- 
ple of  the  practice  of  prevention  already  referred  to.  Having  been 
absent  from  the  Southern  Hemisphere  for  more  than  ten  years  I  am 
unable  to  follow  up  the  above  line  of  inquiry  any  further.  But  since 
the  foregoing  observation  has  been  regarded  by  Dr.  Havelock  Ellis 
(Studies,  vol.  vi,  p.  385)  as  evidence  of  the  development  of  a  new 
ethical  theory  in  the  sex  life,  a  theory  according  to  which  both  se.xes, 
emancipated   from  tradition,    freely  claim   sex   rights,   wantonness   and 

(191) 


192  PROBLEMS    OF    SEXUAL    RESPONSIBILITY. 

As  has  been  already  said,  there  is  small  reason  for  think- 
ing that  the  sexual  instinct  has  undergone  any  general  modi- 
fication in  modern  civilized  humanity ;  on  the  contrary,  amid 
the  increasing  complexity  of  life's  conditions  many  causes  con- 
tribute, more  powerfully  than  formerly,  to  exaggerate  sex- 
uality. To  enumerate  and  classify  these  causes,  and  to  dis- 
tinguish the  diverse  methods  and  the  varying  degrees  of  power 
with  which  they  act  on  particular  classes,  is  no  easy  task.  If 
an  increase  of  unchastity  is  noticeable  in  the  cultured  and 
brain-taxing  class,  it  will  not  be  due  to  the  very  same  causes 
as  a  similar  increase  in  the  laboring  class ;  at  any  rate,  the 
action  of  these  causes  will  be  somewhat  different  in  the  two 
cases.  In  a  high  state  of  civilization,  the  brain-taxing  class, 
experiencing  no  diminution  of  desire,  would  find  the  control 
and  suppression  of  it  add  greatly  toi  their  existing  mental  and 
physical  strain ;  and  unless  the  extra  will-power  requisite  to 
meet  the  increased  strain  could  be  developed  by  religious  or 
other  influences,  the  conditions  of  the  case  would  inevitably 
foster  an  increase  of  unchastity  in  that  class. 

The  sons  of  manual  toil,  on  the  other  hand,  would  not 
have  to  endure  the  same  nerve-strain  as  the  brain-workers,  in 
relation  to  the  control  of  sexuality;  nor  perhaps  would  their 
conditions   of   life   develop   among  them   habitually   excessive 


excess  being  averted  by  a  balancing  sense  of  personal  responsibility, 
it  is  well  to  add  that  though  the  inference  may  have  an  element  of 
truth,  it  was  not  in  my  own  mind  when  the  above  conclusion  was 
formed.  Although  there  certainly  existed,  and  may  well  exist  now, 
a  large  amount  of  sexual  looseness  in  Australasia,  the  conscience  of  the 
people  was  conservative  enough  to  condemn  it,  and  to  urge  them — as 
Coghlan,  whom  Ellis  proceeds  to  cite,  shows — to  remedy  it  and  atone 
for  it  by  marriage.  There  were  no  important  signs  that  Australasian 
society  was  moving  in  the  direction  of  forming  any  theory  radically  or 
fundamentally  different  from  the  governing  theories  of  the  older  exist- 
ing civilizations;  though  it  is  true  that  those  newer  civilizations  are 
more  ready  than  the  old  to  accept  modifications  and  adaptations — in  re- 
lation to  such  questions  as  divorce  and  marriage  prohibitions — of  the 
traditional  theories. 


PROBLEMS    OF    SEXUAL   RESPONSIBILITY.  193 

desire.  As  regards  certain  regions — as  the  British  Austra- 
lasian Colonies,  for  example — considerable  allowance  must  be 
made  for  the  general  departure  of  the  growing  population 
from  the  physical  type  which  is  their  heritage,  for  particular 
evil  influences  of  heredity,  which  may  be  specially  strong  and, 
as  it  were,  concentrated  in  certain  regions;  and  for  climate — 
causes  which  may  conceivably  do  much  to  disturb  and  exagger- 
ate the  sexual  function  and  passion.  Apart  from  these,  one 
would  have  to  seek  for  the  cause  of  an  increase  of  unchastity 
in  the  weakening  of  some  extraneous  controlling  influence. 

The  chief  influence  which  is  weakened  with  this  disastrous 
result  is  usually  considered  to  emanate  from  two  kindred 
sources,  parental  control  and  religious  fear. 

In  this  connection,  the  Bishop  of  Carpentaria  wrote  in  1901  of 
Australian  society,  primarily  of  the  bush  settlers :  "With  no  religious 
principle  to  restrain  and  guide,  we  cannot  wonder  that  vices  prevail  to 
an  appalling  extent.  I  should  put  these,  in  the  order -of  prevalence,  as 
impurity,  gambling,  and  drink.  The  first-named  sin  is  eating  out  the 
heart  and  destroying  the  vitality  of  the  Australian  race.  It  is  the 
national  sin. 

.  "I  once  asked  an  intelligent  layman  to  try  and  obtain 
for  me  some  estimate  of  the  extent  of  Australian  immorality.  When 
I  next  saw  him,  he  said,  'I  am  so  utterly  appalled  by  the  extent  of  the 
evil  that  I  have  come  to  the  deliberate  opinion  that  it  is  useless  to  take 
any  steps  against  it.'  But  the  Church  of  Christ  can  never  admit  this 
position."ia 

One  hesitates  about  venturing  an  opinion  as  to  how  far 
the  lack  of  religious  instruction  in  schools  is  responsible  for 
the  growth  of  sexual  immorality  among  the  youth  of  a  country 
where  such  instruction  is  not  given.  The  recognition  of 
religion  in  schools  may  indeed  be  considered  to  have  a  vast 
indirect  and  ultimate  good  effect  upon  morals ;  but  general 
religious  teaching  will  not,  in  any  case,  do  all  that  is  required. 
It  would  be  easy  to  discover  and  point  to  a  great  number  of 
schools  filled  by  English-speaking  youth,  where  the  Scriptures 
are  systematically  taught,  where  prayer  is  held  and  sacraments 


1*  The  Australasian  Intercollegian,  vol.  iv.  No.  9,  p.  2. 


194  PROBLEMS    OF    SEXUAL    RESPONSIBILITY. 

are  celebrated,  where  duly  qualified  clergy  have  scope  for  their 
influence  and  ministrations;  but  which,  if  conclusions  may  be 
drawn  from  evidence  possessed  by  many,  but  used  by  few,  are 
on  no  higher  level,  in  respect  of  sexual  morality,  than  schools 
which  have  not  these  advantages. 

In  point  of  fact,  no  amount  of  teaching  on  other  branches 
of  ethics  can  render  needless  the  watchfulness  over  sexual 
development,  and  teaching  to  correspond  with  it,  which  is  here 
desiderated. 

Emphasis  is  sometimes  laid  on  one  of  the  aforesaid 
sources  of  moral  influence,  in  this  connection,  sometimes  on 
the  other ;  but  they  are  in  truth  closely  united,  and  the  weaken- 
ing of  the  disciplinary  influence  which  comes  from  them  is  a 
lax  development  of  what  is  in  the  main  true  and  good,  the 
modern  movement  of  thought  and  feeling  in  the  direction  of 
a  greater  appreciation  and  realization  of  moral  freedom,  and 
a  deeper  insight  into  moral  problems.  For  the  trend  of  modern 
ethical  thought,  however  much  of  truth  and  greatness  it  may 
contain  on  its  higher'  side,  has,  like  all  stages  of  human  ad- 
vance, a  false  aspect.  On  the  one  hand  thoughtful,  pious,  and 
conscientious  people  feel  themselves  to  be  receivers  of  an  in- 
estimable blessing  in  the  outpouring  of  the  illuminating  Spirit — 
for  such  we  reverently  hope  the  modern  thought-movement 
in  the  main  to  be — which  has  made  it  possible  to  consider  the 
development  of  morality  and  the  power  of  religious  sanctions 
from  hitherto  unnoticed  -points  of  view ;  which  has  shown 
how  and  where  and  how  far  to  make  allowance  for  the  cir- 
cumstances which  surround  particular  breaches  of  the  moral 
law;  which  has  revealed  the  working  of  secret  laws  of  love 
and  mercy  in  dark  depths  of  human  depravity  from  which  our 
forefathers  believed  the  Divine  Spirit  to  be  forever  excluded ; 
which  has  immensely  widened  the  horizon  of  our  hopes ;  which 
has  freed  religion  from  a  vast  amount  of  gloomy  horror,  and 
parental  discipline  from  much  morbid  savagery. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  with  the  unthinking  multitude,  in 
their  partial   survey  of  this  growth  of   ideas  and  with  their 


PROBLEMS    OF    SEXUAL   RESPONSIBILITY.  195 

feeble  power  of  appreciating  its  true  meaning,  false  notions  of 
moral  freedom  are  easily  developed  at  a  time  like  the  present,- 
and  these  are  the  unhealthy  and  dangerous  elements  in  the 
modern  reaction  against  the  harshness  and  savagery  and  igno- 
rance, which  in  bygone  generations  darkened  religion  and 
infused  bitterness  and  unkindness  into  the  family  relation. 

It  must  not  be  inferred,  however,  that  to  counteract  mod- 
ern unhealthy  symptoms  and  lax  developments,  there  is 
requisite  a  sweeping  condemnation  of  the  present  trend  of 
ethical  thought  and  feeling.  What  is  needed  is  the  effort  to 
discern  clearly  the  actual  points  at  which  sexual  immorality  is 
most  successfully  encroaching  on  the  life  of  modern  society, 
the  causes  which  render  particular  classes  of  people  specially 
or  increasingly  liable  to  specific  forms  of  immorality;  the 
methods  by  which  vice  is  fostered,  hardened,  organized,  de- 
veloped ;  the  evil  factors  in  human  nature  which  take  advan- 
tage of  the  inevitable  complications  and  difficulties  of  life  to 
wrest  and  distort  ethical  doctrines  savoring  of  freedom  into 
acquiescence  in  moral  remissness  and  criminal  self-indulgence. 
It  must  be  by  a  carefully  considered  strategy,  based  on  a  clear 
and  discriminating  view  of  the  situation,  that  the  encroach- 
ments of  impurity  on  the  health  and  morals  of  society  are  met. 
The  forces  of  purity  require  to  be  to  some  extent  redistributed, 
massed  according  to  a  modified  scheme. 

Another  possible  factor  in  the  increase  of  immorality  in 
Australasia  will  be  the  lack  of  a  sufficient  number  of  upper- 
class  women  to  act  as  a  salutary  leaven  in  the  democratic  com- 
munities.   That  a  fast  set  exists  among  the  higher  social  classes 


2  Cp.  Beale,  Our  Morality,  p.  165  :  "While  it  is  undoubtedly  true 
that  some  kinds  of  knowledge  are  spreading  at  a  greater  rate,  and 
entering  more  widely  and  more  deeply  than  at  any  previous  time,  it 
is  doubtful  whether  the  disposition  to  think  over  important  questions 
is  as  general  as  it  was,  while  that  invaluable  mental  acquisition  known 
as  judgment  is  probably  more  rare  than  in  times  when  information 
and  knowledge  were  less  widely  diffused."  For  other  causes  of  the 
weakening  of  parental  control,  see  Booth,  Life  and  Labor,  final  vol., 
pp.  42,  43. 


196  AGE    OF    CONSENT, 

of  women  is  not  to  be  denied ;  but  it  is  certain  that  the  EngHsh 
gentlewomen,  as  a  body,  have  nobly  maintained  a  high  stand- 
ard of  fe'minine  virtue  and  dignity,  and  have  set  a  fine  example 
in  this  respect  to  other  social  grades.  Virtue  has  been  strength- 
ened by  the  maxim,  "noblesse  oblige."  The  weakening  of  this 
influence  in  Australasia  may  assist  looseness  of  morals  among 
the  rank  and  file  of  young  women  in  those  parts. 

The  criticisms  already  made  in  this  volume  upon  co- 
education need  also  to  be  considered  here. 

A  favorite  theory  among  women  is  that  protection  will  be 
given  to  their  own  sex,  and  benefit  accrue  to  morals  generally, 
if  the  age  of  consent  is  considerably  raised — fixed,  as  some 
advocate,  at  twenty-one  years. 

A  thorough  study  of  legislation  on  the  age  of  consent,  and 
of  its  history,  and  a  comparison  of  the  forms  it  has  taken  iii 
various  countries,  has  not  been  possible  for  the  author  of  this 
essay.3  Yet  it  must  be  observed  that  to  give  such  a  measure 
of  protection  to  female  virtue  as  is  desiderated  by  some  seems 
to  lie  beyond  the  functions  of  the  State.  It  is  for  the  State,  in- 
deed, to  protect  helpless  classes  in  the  community  against  the 
ravages  of  impurity;  but  where  persons  of  a  responsible  age 
and  condition  are  concerned,  nothing  can  be  more  unwise  than 
to  attempt  to  transfer  the  responsibility  for  moral  delinquen- 
cies from  individuals  to  the  State.  It  is  right  to  emphasize  the 
danger  of  fixing  the  age  of  consent  too  high."^  The  moral 
effect  on  the  minds  of  young  women  of  16  to  21  years  of  age, 
and  the  consequent  social  disturbance,  would  be  disastrous,  if 
they  knew  that  without  heavy  consequences  to  themselves  as 


3  This  history  is  sketched  and  a  bibliography  given,  by  K.  Mar- 
tens, in  the  Zeitschrift  fiir  Sexualwissenschaft,  vol.  i,  No.  4.  There 
is  besides,  a  full  discussion,  principally  in  relation  to  homosexuality, 
in  Hirschfeld,  Die  Homosexualitat,  pp.  989fif. 

3a  Howard's  contention  {op.  cit.,  vol.  iii,  pp.  19Sff.)  that  21,  or 
at  lowest  18,  should  be  the  legal  age,  is  trenchantly  criticised  by 
Havelock  Ellis,  Studies,  vol.  vi,  pp.  528ff. 


AGE    OF    CONSENT.  197 

regards  social  condemnation,  they  could  gratify  unlawfully 
their  sexual  passions.  And,  further,  such  legislation  would 
afford  room  for  cases  of  gross  miscarriage  of  justice  in  respect 
of  young  male  partners  in  fornication,  cases  of  a  nature  so 
obvious  that  it  needs  no  explanatory  comment. 

In  short,  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  draw  a  fair  line  of 
legal  demarcation  between  responsible  and  irresponsible  classes 
in  respect  of  illicit  intercourse;  and  the  section  of  public  opin- 
ion in  a  democracy  which  looks  for  the  solution  of  this  diffi- 
culty in  the  constant  raising  of  the  age  of  consent  by  the  legis- 
lature, is  pushing  its  responsible  rulers  toward  somewhat 
dangerous  ground.  As  soon  as  such  legislation  fails  to  recog- 
nize the  existence  of  a  sufficiently  developed  moral  will  in  the 
female  offender,  of  her  power  of  willfully  attracting  the  male's 
desirous  regard,^^  of  the  possibility  of  her  entertaining  other 
bad  motives  than  those  to  which  the  animal  instinct  itself  gives 
rise,  and  regards  her  as  the  passive  and  irresponsible  instru- 
ment of  the  man's  indulgence,  its  principle  becomes  seriously 
unsound.  To  fix  the  age  of  consent  much  above  the  time  in  a 
girl's  life  when  puberty  becomes  distinctly  marked,  seems  to 
conflict  with  nature's  declared  intention  in  the  matter,  viz.,  to 
allow  within  the  individual  of  either  sex,  as  soon  as  a  certain 
age  has  been  passed,  the  experience  of  sexual  desire,  and  the 
free  action  of  the  will  in  regard  to  the  gratification  or  denial  of 
that  desire.  If  there  is  a  period  past  puberty  when  doubt  exists 
as  to  the  moral  responsibility  of  the  female,  the  governing 
power  that  punishes  the  male  offender  ought  at  least  to  assert 
its  right  to  treat  each  case  on  its  merits  as  regards  the  female, 
to  provide  for  her  detention — where  the  circumstances  after 
proper  investigation  seem  to  call  for  it — in  a  suitable  institu- 


3b  This  power  is  exercised  not  infrequently  in  unlawful  directions. 
"We  women  have  got  to  remember,"  says  C.  Gasquoine  Hartley,  "that 
if  many  of  our  fallen  sisters  have  been  seduced  by  men,  at  least  an 
equal  number  of  men  have  received  their  sexual  initiation  at  the  hands 
of  our  sex."  (The  Truth  about  Woman,  p.  364.)  For  cases  in  illus- 
tration, see  H.  Ellis,  Studies,  vol.  iii,  ed.  2,  pp.  279,  290. 


198  LEGITIMATION. 

tion,  or  for  the  punishment  of  her  parents  or  guardians,  if  her 
immoraHty  is  shown  to  be  largely  attributable  to  their  neglect. 

The  removal  of  disabilities  and  a  social  stigma  from  the 
offspring  of  illicit  unions  is  sometimes  made  a  subject  of  dis- 
cussion. It  is  impossible  here  to  accord  to  this  proposal  the 
careful  consideration  it  merits:  It  may  be  observed  that  the 
existence  of  such  a  stigma  and  its  accompanying  legal  disa- 
bilities is  due  to  the  instinctive  desire  of  a  rightly  organized 
society  to  defend  itself  against  an  increase  of  illegitimacy.  The 
presence  of  an  injustice  inherent  in  this  fact  cannot  indeed  be 
denied;  but  it  is  an  injustice  seemingly  inevitable,  like  others 
which  occur  under  the  operation  of  the  law  of  heredity — a  part 
of  the  present  imperfect  order  of  things.  And  a  rash  en- 
deavor to  abolish  the  stigma  and  disabilities  of  illegitimacy 
would  injure  the  moral  sense  and  weaken  the  foundations  of 
society. 

Nevertheless,  seeing  that  those  natural  and  social  laws 
whose  operation  is  harshest  are  not  intended  to  act  with  a  rigid 
uniformity,  the  frequent  softening  of  society's  severe  regard  of 
illegitimacy,  by  merciful  considerations,  is  not  to  be  regretted. 
The  regulations  under  which  in  any  country  illegitimacy  is 
placed  certainly  deserve  attentive  study  from  time  to  time  on 
the  part  of  thoughtful  and  moral  members  of  the  community, 
with  a  view  to  possible  modification  in  detail,  as  the  outcome 
of  sentiment  at  once  healthy  and  increasingly  humane,  on  the 
subject.  The  Legitimation  Act  of  1894  in  New  Zealand, 
which  makes  provision  for  the  legitimation  of  children  born 
before  marriage,  on  the  subsequent  marriage  of  their  parents, 
seems  based  on  the  extension  of  a  sound  ethical  principle — 
the  possibility  of  recovering  a  forfeited  position  or  privileges, 
by  making  amends  for  a  piece  of  wrongdoing^ — so  as  to  apply 


4  As  regards  the  heredity  of  illegitimates,  I  understand  that  ac- 
cording to  some  investigations  carried  out  by  French  savants  (La 
Revue,  July,  1902),  no  average  congenital  inferiority  for  illegitimates 
can  be  demonstrated. 


LEGITIMATION.  199 

it  not  merely  to  the  wrongdoers,  but  to  those  who  are  injuri- 
ously affected  as  to  social  status  by  their  act.  Society,  while 
it  rightly  maintains  a  jealous  watch  against  the  introduction 
and  subsequent  incorporation  by  law  into  its  system,  of  senti- 
ments and  ideas  subversive  of  the  moral  sense  which  refuses 
to  consider  extra-marital  relations  as  a  recognized  social  cus- 
tom, is  not  justified  in  disallowing  any  sort  of  efficacious  re- 
pentance on  the  part  of  offenders  against  its  laws.  From  the 
short  experience  which  New  Zealand  has  had  of  a  Legitima- 
tion Act  we  do  not  draw  the  inference  that  an  increase  of 
'illegitimacy  has  been  caused,  or  is  likely  to  be  caused,  by  it. 

But  it  is  perhaps  needless  to  develop  further  in  these 
pages  the  foregoing  line  of  thought.  Society's  increasing 
proneness  to  soften  its  regard  of  the  stigma  of  illegitimacy  is 
sufficiently  evident,  and  already  in  some  danger  of  exceeding 
the  bounds  of  prudence.  Such  a  questionable  tendency  is  per- 
haps visible  in  recent  Russian  legislation  on  illegitimacy,  as 
given  in  the  Australasian  Rcviczc  of  Rczicws  for  September, 
1902. 

In  another  part  of  this  essay  some  reflections  are  made  on 
the  baseness  and  cowardice  with  which  some  men  contrive  to 
escape  their  share  of  the  responsibilities  consequent  on  an  act 
of  illicit  intercourse  followed  by  conception.  But  these  re- 
sponsibilities cannot  always  be  brought  home  to  them  by  moral 
influences ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  by  what  means  the  selfish- 
ness of  individuals  can  be  effectually  visited  upon  them. 

The  obvious  consideration  at  once  arises  that  all  attempts 
to  introduce  legal  or  social  penalties  for  libertinism  have  the 
effect  of  causing  people  of  loose  principles  to  avoid  with 
greater  care  and  ingenuity,  not  the  sin  itself,  but  the  concep- 
tion which  may  follow  it. 

IS^or  is  this  the  only  difficulty.  Say  what  we  will  about  it, 
we  have  to  recognize  that  in  the  order  of  nature  it  is  easier  for 
a  man  to  escape  the  inconvenience  of  illicit  parentage — while 
enjoying  the  foregoing  pleasure — than  for  the  woman.  Doubt- 
less in  the  economy  of  the  universe,  in  the  evolution  of  moral- 


200  REGISTRATION    OF    ILLEGITIMATES.    . 

ity,  there  is  some  good  reason  for  this ;  in  any  case  there  is  a 
special  risk  of  social  disorder  in  applying  legislation  to  the 
change  of  social  conditions  which  go  back  to  fundamental 
principles.  For  instance,  that  illegitimate  children  should  be 
registered  in  the  father's  name  sounds  a  simple  proposal ;  but 
in  reality  it  contains  at  least  two  formidable  difficulties :  first, 
the  frequent  reluctance  of  women  pregnant  from  illicit  inter- 
course to  disclose  the  male  partner's  name,  a  reluctance  arising 
from  an  instinct  which,  however  unpractical  it  may  appear, 
has  yet  much  of  moral  beauty  about  it ;  and  second,  the  facility 
w^ith  which,  unless  such  registration  were  adequately  safe- 
guarded, conspiracies  could  be  formed  by  women  of  a  type 
different  from  the  one  just  mentioned,  to  ruin  and  blackmail 
innocent  men.  Cases  are  met  with — one  would  hope  they  are 
not  widely  representative — in  which  the  girl,  though  not  a  pro- 
fessional prostitute,  has  frankly  admitted  that  she  does  not 
know  who  is  the  father  of  her  child.  In  what  spirit,  and  with 
what  regard  to  truth,  such  a  girl  would  be  likely  to  avail  her- 
self of  a  law  permitting  her  to  register  her  child  in  a  man's 
name,  may  be  conjectured.  It  is  not  probable  that  the  fear  of 
a  heavy  penalty  consequent  on  a  conviction  for  conspiracy  to 
defame  would  deter  a  badly  disposed  woman — for  women  do 
not  ordinarily  calculate  the  chances  of  the  future  very  carefully 
— from  making  a  false  declaration  of  a  man's  name,  with  a 
view  to  having  it  registered  as  that  of  the  father  of  her  child. 
Full  solutions  of  these  difficulties  will  be  hard  to  come  by. 
The  present  writer  has  little  or  no  light  to  throw  upon  them, 
and  would  merely  make  the  suggestion  that  supposing  registra- 
tion in  the  man's  name  to  be  adopted  in  principle,  it  might  be 
preferable  that  the  legal  proceedings  (where  the  paternity  is 
denied)  having  this  registration  for  their  object,  should  be 
initiated,  not  by  the  woman  herself  or  her  relatives,  but  on  her 
or  their  application,  by  such  agents  as  the  authorities  in  charge 
of  the  maternity  home  to  which  she  may  have  been  admitted, 
or  by  special  committees  of  purity  guilds.  This  may  seem  a 
cumbrous  method  of  obtaining  the  registration,  and  the  mechan- 


REGISTRATION    OF    ILLEGITIMATES.  201 

ism  of  it  would  require  careful  adjustment  in  detail;  but  there 
seems  to  be  value  in  the  principle  that  the  first  view  of  the  case 
would  be  taken  by  disinterested  experts,  whose  sole  objects 
would  be  justice,  morality,  and  the  assertion  of  the  rights  of 
women. 

On  the  whole,  the  proposal  to  register  in  the  man's  name 
is  not  in  any  case  much  of  an  advance  on  the  present  con- 
dition of  things ;  by  the  very  fact  of  its  existence  it  may  stir 
up  forces  to  counteract  its  own  operation ;  but  the  proposal  is 
the  outcome  of  a  growing  desire  in  society  for  greater  justice, 
and  points  toward  what  is  certainly  a  moral  desideratum,  the 
social  ostracism  of  an  obdurate  male  offender. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Marriage. 

Various  Doctrines  of  Marriage — Rationale  of  Sexual  Desire — 
Intercourse  During  Pregnancy — Aversion  During  Menstruation — Con- 
trol of  Desire — Frigidity — Mutual  Consideration — Hygiene — A  Parable 
Interpreted. 

Our  view  of  the  circumstances,  conditions  and  problems 
of  marriage  has  already  made  it  abundantly  clear  that  men  will 
not  all  find  the  fruit  of  physical  pleasure  therein  sweet  with 
the  same  measure  of  delight,  or  to  be  plucked  with  the  same 
freedom  from  care.  In  medieval  thought,  as  we  have  already 
had  occasion  to  observe,  sexual  intercourse  even  in  matrimony 
was  regarded  as  in  some  measure  sinful  though  venial,  unless 
it  took  place  solely  with  a  view  to  procreation. i  Peter  Lom- 
bard may  be  taken  as  the  exponent  of  this  opinion :  his  judg- 
ment is  that  where  (in  matrimony)  there  is  "copulation  beyond 
the  purpose  of  generation,  it  is  not  good.  .  .  .  For 
necessary  copulation  with  a  view  to  procreation  is  blameless, 
and  this  alone  is  nuptial  copulation.  But  that  copulation  which 
exceeds  this  necessity  belongs  to  the  domain,  not  of  reason,  but 
of  lust ;  and  it  is  the,  duty  of  a  consort  not  to  require  this  for 
himself  or  herself,  but  when  it  is  required  by  the  other  party, 
to  grant  it,  lest  the  other  may  be  driven  to  fornication.  If 
only  one  partner  feels  this,  ex  hypothesi,  excessive  desire  and 
claims  its  gratification,  the  blame  rests  with  that  partner ;  the 
other,  though  consenting,  is  innocent.  But  if  both  are  subject 
to  such  desire,  they  do  that  which  is  not  a  function  of 
marriage."!" 

It  is  admitted,  however,  by  this  school  of  moralists  that 


1  This  doctrine  was  a  legacy  from  the  later  Judaism   (Lueken,  in 
Die  Schriften  des  Neuen  Testaments,  Bd.  ii,  p.  14). 
la  Lombard,  Sentences,  1.  iv,  dist.  xxxi,  sec.  7. 

(202) 


MARRIAGE.  203 

such  copulation  is  venial.  "Marriage,"  according  to  Augus- 
tine, "does  not  compel  the  commission  of  the  sexual  act  minus 
the  procreative  intent ;  but  it  obtains  pardon  for  it  even  in  such 
circumstances." 

Dr.  Trail  somewhat  similarly  enunciates  a  circumscribed 
doctrine  of  marriage.  "It  ought,"  he  says,  "to  be  understood 
by  all  men  and  women  that  the  sexual  embrace  when  either 
party  is  averse  to  it — when  both  parties  are  not  inclined  to  it 
— is  wrong."2 

There  is  certainly  need  for  self-control  and  forbearance 
in  the  physical  use  of  marriage ;  but  the  medieval  theory  is  un- 
scientific; and  neither  that  nor  the  view  of  writers  like  Dr. 
Trail  is  in  full  accord  with  the  ethical  teaching  which  Chris- 
tians at  any  rate  regard  as  most  authoritative,  that  of  the 
Bible.  A  true  principle  of  exegesis  will  not  indeed  allow  of 
our  collecting  detached  texts  to  support  a  theory ;  but  we  must 
attach  great  significance  to  the  fact  that  in  both  Testaments  an 
ethical  view  of  the  use  of  marriage  is  put  forward  in  books 
of  which  the  special  purpose  is  the  giving  of  moral  guidance ; 
books  written  by  inspired  men  whose  knowledge  of  human  life 
and  human  nature  and  of  the  operation  of  the  Divine  Spirit 
upon  them,  was  extraordinarily  sympathetic,  accurate  and  pro- 
found. And  this  view  is  more  comprehensive,  more  liberal 
than  either  that  of  the  medieval  moralists  or  that  adopted  by 
Dr.  Trail. 

So  completely  is  sexual  intercourse  legalized  and  hallowed 
by  marriage  that  in  the  Bible  no  explicit  mention  is  made  of 
excess  in  this  physical  use  of  marriage.  Some  scholars  have 
seen  a  reference  to  such  excess  in  the  Biblical  use  of  the  word 
7rXeov£^6a. 3     The  reference  is  by  no  means  clear;  the  passage 


-  Sexual  Physiology  and  Hygiene,  p.  200. 

•'  Nicholson,  On  the  Catechism,  Com.  vii.  Greek  scholarship  has 
not  established  that  the  word  irXeove^la  standing  alone  ever  connotes 
impurity.  The  most  that  it  seems  permissible  to  say  is  that  irXeove^la, 
in  passages  where  it  stands  in  a  close  juxtaposition  with  words  de- 
noting sexual  sins,  itself  receives  a  general  notion  or  taint  of  impurity; 


204  PROBLEMS    OF   MARRIAGE. 

which  Bishop  Nicholson  adduces  in  support  of  it  (Heb.  13:4) 
seems  rather  to  allow  than  to  view  with  suspicion  a  free  enjoy- 
ment of  sexual  pleasure  in  the  married  estate.  In  the  thought 
of  another  of  the  Biblical  writers, "^  vigorous  and  energetic 
desire  is  innocent  and  even  commendable,  provided  that  it  is 
governed  by  the  moral  sanction  of  the  monogamic  marriage 
relation.  The  wife  is  viewed  not  merely  as  the  potential 
mother  of  children,  but  as  the  source  of  innocent  sexual 
pleasure. '"^  Still  more  widely  known  in  this  connection  is  the 
judgment  of  St.  Paul,'^  with  which  the  view  of  Dr.  Trail, 
already  referred  to,  is  obviously  to  some  extent  at  variance. 

Monogamic  unions  of  long  duration  being  the  form  which 
marriage  is  intended  to  take  in  the  human  race,  as  Wester- 
marck,  the  great  student  of  the  history  and  evolution  of  mar- 
riage, shows  at  length,  it  may  be  inferred  that  the  force  and 
frequent  operation  of  carnal  desire  in  man,  when  controlled 
and  directed  by  right  moral  ideals,  is  a  powerful  factor  in 
cementing  such  unions. 

To  the  human  race  belongs  the  experience  of  ^sexual 
desire  during  the  pregnancy  of  the  female.'^     It  is  not  quite  an 

in  the  same  way  as,  by  a  converse  process,  a  word  used  of  sexual  sin, 
the   word  dKadapaia,    may  expand  its  sense   so   as  to   inckide  nXeove^la. 
(See  Zockler  on  I  Thess.  4:  7,  in  Strack  and  Zockler,  Kurzg.  Komm.) 
4Prov.  5:15ff. 

5  See  Toy's  commentary  in  loc. 

6  I  Cor.  7 :  3ff. 

'''It  may  be  considered  that  an  ethical  objection  to  the  practice 
of  intercourse  during  pregnancy  arises  from  the  side  of  anthropological 
science,  inasmuch  as  there  is  a  certain  body  of  evidence  (adduced  by 
Crawley,  The  Mystic  Rose,  p.  54)  to  the  effect  that  such  intercourse 
is  avoided  among  primitive  peoples;  and  the  inference  may  be  drawn 
that  it  is  an  unjustifiable  development  in  civilized  man.  But  neither  is 
the  evidence  conclusive  as  to  the  primitive  obligation  of  this  avoidance, 
nor  the  inference  sufficiently  safe.  It  might  indeed  well  be  expected 
that  pregnancy  as  a  sexual  crisis  would  fall  within  the  range  of  the 
sexual  taboos  in  primitive  races ;  but,  as  we  have  elsewhere  had  occa- 
sion to  observe,  nothing  could  be  more  unsafe  than  to  accept  un- 
critically the  guidance  in  sexual  matters  of  either  savage  asceticism  or 


PROBLEMS    OF   MARRIAGE.  205 

exclusively  human  experience ;  for  copulation  has  been  ob- 
served to  take  place  between  monkeys  in  similar  circumstancs ; 
but  it  would  seem  at  least  confined  to  man  and  the  stage  of 
creation  next  below  him.  Intercourse  during  pregnancy  is  not 
prompted  by  male  passion  alone ;  for  the  desire  is  felt  by  at 
least  some  women  for  some  time  after  conception.  This  un- 
usual continuation  of  desire  tends  to  make  sexual  unions  in 
the  human  race  durable  and  monogamic.  Mutual  desire  con- 
tinued during  pregnancy  must  be  a  potent  physical  factor  in 
the  process  of  cementing  and  rendering  permanent  the  mar- 
riage contract.  It  has  not  been  suggested,  so  far  as  is  known 
to  the  author,  that  acts  of  intercourse  during  pregnancy  serve 
any  particular  physical  purpose,  apart  from  this  ethical  one. 
It  is  not  perhaps  likely  that  any  such  physical  purpose  exists ; 
for  some  couples  find  it  practicable,  indeed  expedient,  to  re- 
frain altogether  from  intercourse  at  this  time. 

Fiirbringer  regards  medical  permission  of  intercourse  up  to  the 
end  of  the  fifth  or  sixth  month  as  a  reasonable  and  sometimes  necessary 
concession,  unobjectionable  on  hygienic  grounds,  where  the  wife  has 
no  special  weakness.  He  emphasizes,  however,  the  special  need  of. 
gentleness  on  the  husband's  part  at  this  time,  and  indicates  precautions 
by  which  it  may  be  insured.  And  he  insists  that  the  permission  is 
of  the  nature  of  a  concession,  one  that,  as  we  have  already  seen,  and 
as  Fiirbringer  illustrates,  has  been  regarded  with  suspicion  or  even 
strenuously  refused,  among  various  races  and  in  various  periods  of 
history.    Kossmann  offers  a  similar  opinion. § 

Moll  argues  against  a  general  prohibition  of  such  inter- 
course.^" Among  theologians,  Paley  refers  to  the  prohibitio 
concubitus  cum  gravida  uxori  as  an  austerity  wrongly  im- 
posed.^ Sanchez  denied  that  such  intercourse  was  even  a 
venial  sin.i^    It  may  be  observed  that  one  of  the  points  which 


savage  licentiousness.  At  best,  the  anthropological  evidence  alone 
does  not  appear  sufficient  to  outweigh  the  other  considerations  here 
adduced  to  justify  a  moderate  and  occasional  use  of  such  intercourse. 

8  Senator  and  Kaminer,  op.  cit.,  pp.  225,  257. 

s«  Ibid.,  p.  999. 

^  Moral  Philosophy,  bk.  iii,  ch.  ii. 

1*^  De  Matriiii.  Sacr.,  1.  ix,  disp.  xxii. 


206  PROBLEMS    OF   MARRIAGE. 

apologists  for  polygyny  have  tried  to  make  is  that  it  favors 
abstinence  during  pregnancy  and  consequently  protects  the 
intra-uterine  processes;  but  the  experience  of  Mormonism  has 
not  shown  that  the  children  of  polygamic  have  any  constitu- 
tional advantage  over  those  of  monogamic  unions. ^^^ 

While,  therefore,  it  would  be  ill-advised  to  ignore  the  fact, 
pointed  out  by  H.  Ellis, lOb  that  medical  opposition  to  inter- 
course during  pregnancy  has  recently  tended  to  increase  rather 
than  to  diminish,  it  would  seem  that  as  yet  neither  the  hygienic 
requirements  of  pregnancy  nor  eugenic  considerations  will  sup- 
port a  categorical  prohibition  of  this  course  of  action.  It  is 
sufficient  for  moral  guidance,  if  the  advantages  of  self-denial 
be  duly  exhibited,  if  this  latter  course  be  recommended  rather 
than  discouraged.  Some  moderate  and  helpful  advice  on  the 
point  now  under  consideration,  combined  with  excellent  general 
teaching  on  the  physical  use  of  marriage,  will  be  found  in  the 
leaflet,  entitled  The  Proper  Discipline  to  be  Observed  by  Mar- 
ried People  in  Regard  to  Conjugal  Intercourse,  published  by 
Messrs.  John  Bale  &  Sons  and  Danielsson,  Ltd.,  London. 

The  phenomena  of  human  sex  periodicity  would  also  seem 
to  indicate  that  marriage  tends  to  be  a  durable  union.  If  sex 
periodicity  can  be  made  out  in  man — and  the  investigations 
of  Perry  Coste  and  others  appear  to  demonstrate  a  rhythmical 
and  somewhat  rapid  recurrence  of  sexual  activity  in  the  male 
subject — its  existence  may  be  teleogically  interpreted  as  justi- 
fying, so  far  as  the  man  is  concerned,  considerable  though 
regulated  frequency  of  sexual  gratification ;  although  it  is  true 
that  a  great  many  other  regulating  influences  ought  to  find 
their  scope  in  a  man's  sex  life  besides  the  rise  and  fall  of 
sexuality. 

Sex  periodicity  is  far  more  clearly  marked  in  woman.  In 
her,  too,  it  is  rapidly  recurrent.  Anabolism.  the  continuous 
accumulation  of  nutritive  power,  reaches  a  culminating  point 

'^^^  Cannon  and  Knapp,  Brigham  Young  and  his  Mormon  Empire, 
p.  242. 

lot.  op.  cit.,  vol.  vi,  pp.  18f. 


PROBLEMS    OF   MARRIAGE.  207 

in  the  woman  in  the  course  of  a  hinar  month;  beyond  that 
point,  the  anaboHc  process  is  interrupted  either  by  effectual 
contact  with  the  male,  or,  in  the  absence  of  this,  by  the  men- 
strual overflow  of  the  anabolic  surplus.  Sexual  desire,  and 
even  an  increase  of  it,  may  be  experienced  by  woman  during 
the  menstrual  flow ;  but  it  must  not  be  inferred  that  this  symp- 
tom marks  the  period  as  the  best  time  for  coitus ;  for  such  an 
experience  is  not  perhaps  the  ordinary  one  on  the  woman's 
part,  and  may  be  pathological.  The  flow  itself  expresses  a 
catabolic  condition  in  the  organism.  Feminine  desire  is  usu- 
ally strongest  before  and  after  the  flow ;  and  as  at  these  times 
the  anabolic  process  is  either  going  on  or  has  reached  its'  cul- 
mination, so  that  the  woman's  general  vitality  is  higher  then 
than  during  the  catabolic  flow,  such  times  would  seem  more 
suitable  for  coitus  than  the  menstrual  period  itself. 

The  traditional  and  widespread  aversion  to  intercourse  during 
menstruation  has  been  searchingly  criticised  by  some  modern  anthro- 
pologists. The  still  current  belief,,  formed  from  the  prima  facie  view 
of  the  facts,  is  that  menstruation  is  an  evacuation  of  accumulated  im- 
purities.10^=  From  this  has  arisen  "a  sense  of  natural  disgust  or  shame, 
which  has  been  developed  into  an  ethical  and  religious  feeling  of  un- 
cleanness  ;"iOd  and  which,  it  may  be  added,  has  made  (jf  the  menstruat- 
ing woman  an  object  of  superstitious  dread,  and  has  suggested  the 
notion  that  intercourse  during  menstruation  is  both  dangerous  to  the 
man  and  liable  to  engender  monstrous  offspring. 

Neither  of  the  three  last  notions  would  seem  well  grounded. 
Whatever  menstruation  may  be — and  this  is  still  obscure — it  is  not 
merely  or  primarily  a  process  of  cleansing.  Exact  science,  having  pene- 
trated more  deeply  into  the  causation  of  monstrous  birthsif*e  hgg  under- 
mined the  second  notion;  and  indeed  Sanchez  already  laid  little  stress 
upon  it.^of 

Havelock  Ellis,  returning  to  the  discussion  of  menstruation  in  its 
relation  to  desire,  in  vol.  iii  of  his  Studies,  p.  22,  quotes  W.  Heape  as 
concluding  his  survey  of  the  sexual  season  in  mammals  with  the  obser- 
vation :     "In  those  animals  which  suffer  from  a  considerable  discharge 


i"c  Ploss  &  Bartels,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  458. 
lod  Driver-White,  on  Levit.  15  :  1. 
loe  Keith,  The  Human  Body,  ch.  viii. 
i"f  Op.  cit.,  1.  ix,  disp.  xxi. 


208  PROBLEMS    OF    MARRIAGE. 

of  blood  during  the  pro-oestrum  or  menstruation  the  main  portion  of 
that  discharge,  if  not  the  whole  of  it,  will  be  evacuated  before  sexual 
intercourse  is  allowed."  But  Ellis  maintains  that  this  conclusion  may 
be  subject  to  special  moditications  in  the  case  of  man. 

Fiirbringer,  while  adducing  several  reasons  for  disallowing  inter- 
course during  menstruation,  nevertheless  considers  that  the  contact  of 
menstrual  blood  with  male  organs  has  not  been  proved  injurious  in 
any  marked  degree.  Kossmann  suggests  that  in  cases  where  the  wife 
is  ordinarily  frigid,  this  frigidity  disappearing  during  the  latter  stages 
of  menstruation,  intercourse  at  that  time  might  be  advisable. I'^s 

Yet  even  when  the  common  aversion  to  intercourse  dur- 
ing the  period  has  been  disjoined  from  its  basis  of  superstitious 
ideas,  we  are  not  justified  in  thereafter  rejecting  it  without 
more  ado.  Its  ethical  connotation  does  not  evaporate  with  the 
disappearance  of  superstitious  elements.  Sanchez  was  right  in 
retaining  the  esthetic  objection  to  this  course  of  sexual  action, 
along  with  the  proviso  that  for  grave  reasons  this  objection 
may  be  waived.  Otherwise  the  common  aversion  holds  good, 
and  forms  a  sexual  safeguard  to  women  in  a  condition  of 
catabolism. 

The  rapid  recurrence  of  periodic  sexual  change  in  both 
man  and  woman  prevents  mutual  desire  from  being  merely 
transient,  a  thing  of  a  day  or  two,  as  it  is  in  most  of  the  lower 
animals.  If  after  sexual  connection  both  partners  to  the  act 
knew  that  thereafter  they  would  feel  no  mutual  desire  for 
many  months,  one  of  the  factors  in  their  union  which  makes 
most  for  its  permanence  and  durability  would  be  gone.  The 
absence  of  a  continually  recurring  mutual  desire  would  prob- 
ably long  ago  have  caused  promiscuity,  or  at  least  a  short  and 
unenduring  form  of  marriage  rather  than  monogamy,  to  rep- 
resent sexual  union  in  humanity. 

It  would  be  lawless  and  dangerous  to  strain  either  the 
ethical  teaching  of  the  Biblical  writers,  or  the  scientific  ex- 
planation of  desire  in  the  human  subject,  in  the  interests  of 
selfish  and  inconsiderate  license.  The  physical  use  of  mar- 
riage has  its  moral  bearings ;  it  has  its  peculiar  attendant  dan- 


^^s  Senator  and  Kaminer,  ol>.  cit.,  pp.  225,  249. 


PROBLEMS    OF   MARRIAGE.  209 

gers.  There  is  a  right  and  a  wrong  in  it,  though  the  hne 
which  divides  them  is  not  easily  discerned.  If  we  are  right  in 
thinking  that  no  actual  reference  is  made  in  the  Bible  to  this 
form  of  sexual  excess,  yet  it  is  certain  that  such  excess  is  im- 
plicitly condemned  by  the  general  principles  of  self-control  and 
forbearance  inculcated  in  the  Bible. ^^  And  it  is  equally  cer- 
tain that  such  excess  often  exists,  though  rather  perhaps  from 
ignorance  of  physiology  and  weakness  of  will  than  from  any 
depravity,  in  the  marriage  relation.  The  three  to  five  acts  of 
intercourse  a  month  suggested  (see  the  above-mentioned  leaf- 
let) as  a  reasonable  allowance,  is  far  exceeded  on  some  mar- 
riage-beds. 

Fiirbringer,  who  discusses  at  considerable  length  the  permissible 
frequency  of  conjugal  intercourse,  and  illustrates  in  various  ways  the 
difficulty  of  laying  down  rules  on  this  point,  finally  concludes  that  in 
anything  like  normal  circumstances  and  apart  from  periods  of  preg- 
nancy and  menstruation,  50  to  100  acts  in  the  year  are  hygienically 
justifiable.  These  would  not  of  course  be  equally  divided  among  the 
weeks  of  the  year.     (Senator  and  Kaminer,  of.  cif..  p.  221.) 

Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  the  continued  refusal  by 
either  husband  or  wife  to  render  to  the  other  party  the  physical 
due  of  marriage  is  not  infrequently  a  danger  to  chastity  and 
to  conjugal  love.  When  a  woman,  not  being  incapacitated 
from  sexual  intercourse  by  sufficient  ill-health  or  some  other 
just  cause,  persistently  repels  her  husband's  advances,  she  runs 
the  risk  of  eventually  giving  him  a  sexual  distaste  for  her ; 
and,  as  a  result,  of  causing  his  affection  for  her  to  diminish. 
The  same  is  true  vice  versa;  though  such  cases,  where  the 
sexual  frigidity  is  on  the  husband's  side,  are  probably  more 
rare.  Of  course,  frigidity  or  impotentia  cceundi  may  be  abso- 
lute ;  in  which  case  it  has  been  regarded  as  affording  a  just 
cause  for  the  dissolution  of  a  marriage — a  marriage,  indeed, 
which  could  never  have  been  perfectly  contracted.     But  the 


11  The  early  Christians  evidently  took  this  view.  One  of  the 
points  Tertullian  makes  in  defense  of  Christian  morality  is  that  Chris- 
tians abstain  from  all  conjugal  excess  (Apol.,  c.  ix,  s.  46)  ;  and  Athena- 
goras  presents  the  same  implication. 


210  PROBLEMS    OF   MARRIAGE. 

cases  we  have  now  in  mind  are  rather  those  in  which  sexual 
intercourse  is  not  physically  impossible,  but  highly  distasteful, 
to  one  party ;  and  where,  accordingly,  every  effort  is  made  to 
avoid  it,  with  the  result  of  ignoring  one  of  the  objects  for 
which  marriage  was  instituted. 

Here,  as  so  often  elsewhere,  extreme  opposites  have  the 
same  or  similar  effects.  Sexual  frigidity,  like  excessive 
venery,  is  a  sin  against  conjugal  peace.^^  And  as  some  seeds 
are  sown  in  the  winter,  and  when  well  settled  in  the  soil 
sprout  and  grow  abundantly  in  the  warmer  weather,  so  many 
an  adultery  may  have  its  first  origin  in  a  frigid  and  undutiful 
marriage-bed,  to  flourish  and  bear  abundantly  the  fruit  of 
misery  amid  some  ensuing  circumstances  of  external  sensuous 
temptation. 

It  is  well  known  that  frigidity,  hke  excessive  desire,  has 
a  physical  basis;  and  the  frigid  partner  might  argue  that 
physical  defects  are  no  fault  of  his  or  of  hers.  But  the  point 
here  emphasized  is  that  scope  should  consciously  be  given  to 
volition  and  the  direction  and  education  of  the  intention,  in 
the  use  of  the  marriage-bed.  If  constitutional  tendencies  err 
either  in  the  direction  of  frigidity  or  in  that  of  unusual  sex- 
uality, an  effort  of  the  will,  supported  by  religious  and  other 
influences,  should  be  made  to  prevent  such  tendencies  produc- 
ing the  disaster  which  is  their  natural  fruit.  As  the  result  of 
wide   observation,    Sperry   maintains   that   there   is   a   certain 


12  See  Guernsey,  Plain  Talks,  p.  95:  "Quite  too  many  cases  have 
come  under  my  observation  where  the  marriage  vow  has  never  been 
consummated,  or,  if  consummated  at  all,  in  a  very  begrudging  manner, 
owing  to  the  insubordination  of  the  wife."  Catholic  theologians  regard 
the  refusal  of  conjugal  complaisance  as  sinful  unless  justified  by  sub- 
stantial reasons.  (Aquinas,  Suppl.  Summa  Theol.,  pars  iii,  quaest.  Ixiv; 
Sanchez,  1.  ix,  disp.  ii.)  The  conjugal  obligation  relates  indeed  to  a 
matter  too  complex  and  delicate  to  allow  of  its  being  successfully  en- 
forced by  secular  law,  though  this  course  has  been  tried  (Ellis,  op.  cit., 
vol.  vi,  p.  474;  Whadcoat,  Every  Woman's  Own  Lawyer,  pp.  156f.),  yet 
it  holds  good  in  the  moral  sphere,  and  Christianity  cannot  lose  sight 
of  it. 


PROBLEMS    OF    MARRIAGE.  211 

number  of  women  to  whom  sexual  intercourse  affords  no  car- 
nal pleasure;  there  are  others  in  whom  erotic  passion  on  its 
carnal  side  is  as  strongly  developed  as  it  is  in  the  male;  but 
with  most  women  the  physical  impulse  is  moderate  in  its 
action.  13  The  existence  of  the  frigid  class  affords  an  argu- 
ment for  the  instruction  of  women  in  the  physiology  of  sex 
before  marriage.  Many  girls  have  not  a  theoretical  knowl- 
edge of  the  sexual  act  when  they  marry.  It  may  be  said  that 
it  is  fair  neither  to  the  man  nor  to  the  woman  to  allow  of  the 
latter's  entering  uninstructed  and  unwarned^^  on  a  state  in 
which  an  act,  physically  always  repulsive  to  her,  will  fre- 
quently have  to  be  performed,  a  duty  which  she  will  never 
render  with  anything  but  distaste  and  reluctance — reluctance 
'eventually  leading,  perchance,  to  serious  unkindness  between 
her  and  her  husband.  On  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  urged 
that  some  young  women  might  be  deterred  altogether  from 
marriage  by  such  instruction, — women  who,  being  married, 
would  make  excellent  wives  in  general  respects,  and  who  might 
be  educated  to  a  moderate  appreciation  of  sexual  pleasure. 

Probably,  however,  with  regard  to  the  difficulty  of  giving 
this  instruction,  it  might  usually  be  said,  "solvitiir  ambulando." 
If  mothers  with  marriageable  daughters  would  carefully  and 
rightly  consider  the  matter,  they  would  in  almost  all  cases  find 
the  duty  a  possible  one,  and  would  be  able  to  give  a  theoretical 
knowledge  of  the  sexual  process  with  such  considerateness  and 
tact  as  neither  to  stimulate  unduly  nor  to  stifle  the  just  growth 
of  sexual  emotion.  Then  a  young  woman,  on  marrying,  would 
fully  understand  the  physical  direction  her  duty  to  her  hus- 
band ought  to  take.  She  would  be  prepared  to  make  the 
effort — if  an  effort  were  required — necessary  to  the  pure  and 
temperate  enjoyment  of  the  marriage-bed.  i-''    She  would  allow 


13  See  page  118. 

14  Cp.  Forel,  op.  cit.,  p.  465  (ed.  10,  p.  547). 

!•''  Moll  urges  the  occasional  necessity  of  such  effort,  or  simulation 
of  passion,  on  the  part  of  married  women  (Senator  and  Kaminer,  op. 
cit.,  p.  983).    Cp.  Forel,  op.  cit.,  p.  533. 


212  PROBLEMS    OF    MARRIAGE. 

herself  to  form  no  false  and  illusive  theory  of  wedded  love 
disjoined  from  physical  pleasure.  She  would  try  to  give  that 
pleasure  its  proper  place  in  the  new  life  of  her  sexual  nature, 
now  no  longer  under  her  sole  control.  She  would  not  think  it 
right,  after  accepting  the  obligations  of  matrimony,  to  rebel 
against  the  law  of  nature  by  rejecting  one  of  the  most  vital 
and  important  of  these  obligations. 

Moral  effort  on  the  wife's  side  will,  however,  fail  in  this 
matter  unless  met  by  responsive  patience  and  gentleness  on 
the  part  of  the  husband.  Havelock  Ellis  illustrates,  with  his 
usual  wealth  of  reference,  the  physiological  fact  that  tumes- 
cence in  the  woman  is  ordinarily  slower  than  in  the  man.^® 
The  lack  of  this  knowledge  on  the  part  of  newly  married 
husbands,  or  their  selfish  and  petulant  failure  to  act  on  it 
if  they  possess  it,  accounts  for  the  repulsion  some  wives  con- 
ceive to  sexual  intercourse  on  their  first  experience  of  the 
marriage-bed,  a  repulsion  which  may  develop  into  chronic 
frigidity.  1"  The  self-restraint  of  a  husband  in  regard  to  the 
first  acts  of  intercourse  with  his  bride  will  assist  sexuality  on 
her  side  and  bring  it  to  the  point  proper  for  coition.  It  would 
be  well  indeed,  whenever  it  is  practicable,  that  the  husband 
should  deny  himself  coition  for  the  first  night  or  two  after  his 
marriage,  remembering  that  caresses  and  close  contact  take 
longer  to  produce  tumescence  in  the  woman  than  in  himself. ^^ 


16  Studies,  vol.  iii,  ed.  2,  pp.  236ff. 

^"^  Fiirbringer  calls  attention  to  the  physical  power  of  the  excited 
male  organ  and  the  occasional  severity  of  its  operation,  and  to  the  con- 
sequent injuries  which  a  wife's  delicate  organ  may  suffer  from  the 
husband's  undue  force  and  impetuosity  in  conjugal  intercourse.  (Sen- 
ator and  Kaminer,  op.  cit.,  p.  214.)  See  further  on  the  need  of  physi- 
cal gentleness  with  a  wife,  Blumreich  (Senator  and  Kaminer,  op.  cit., 
pp.  770ff.),  and  Eulenberg  (id.,  p.  905),  who  refer  to  other  medical 
opinions.  It  should  be  observed,  however,  that  some  of  these  authori- 
ties maintain  that  exaggerated  sexual  irritation  in  the  woman  her- 
self frequently  co-operates  with  the  impetuosity  of  the  male  in  pro- 
ducing vaginal  injuries. 

18  Such  temporary  abstinence  at  the  entrance  to  married  life  is 
a  frequent  phenomenon  among  uncivilized  races   (Crawley,  The  Mystic 


PROBLEMS    OF    MARRIAGE.  213 

A  courtship,  in  short,  must  take  place,  not  merely  hefore  mar- 
riage, but  before  acts  of  sexual  union  in  marriage.  Yet  again, 
this  line  of  reasoning  must  not  be  pressed  unduly  far,  else 
might  arise  a  danger  of  tantalizing  and  straining  to  a  harmful 
extent  the  husband's  organs  and  constitution. 

Says  the  great  French  novelist,  speaking  of  the  physical 
consummation  of  conjugal  love,  in  the  book  wherein  the  sex 
life  is  so  wonderfully  reflected:  '*If  in  one  another's  arms,  they 
had  restrained  the  act,  they  would  no  longer  have  loved  one 
another  with  the  whole  being;  they  would  have  been  retaining, 
withdrawing  some  part  of  them,  the  one  from  the  other.  The 
living  bond  would  have  been  untied :  he  would  have  seemed  to 
himself  to  be  treating  her  as  a  stranger;  and  she  would  have 
believed  herself  to  be  no  longer  his  wife.  They  gave  them- 
selves the  one  to  the  other  utterly,  without  any  reservation 
either  of  heart  or  of  body;  and  it  was  for  the  life-force  to 
complete  its  own  work,  if  it  so  seemed  right." 

But  the  question  is  complicated  by  so  many  considerations 
that  any  definition  of  sexual  temperance  in  matrimony  must 
retain  some  elasticity.  Husband  and  wife  must  be  guided  in 
the  matter,  not  by  hard  and  fast  religious  sanctions  or  hygienic 
rules  of  universal  application — such  do  not  seem  discoverable 
in  this  connection-^— but  by  nature  and  common  sense,  allied 
with  personal  religion.  Such  are  those  whom  Bishop 
Andrewes  prays  for  in  his  beautiful  intercession,  who  use  the 
world  as  not  abusing  it,  by  a  discreet  and  moderate  enjoyment 
of  the  most  lawful  pleasures,  under  the  constant  direction  and 
restraint  of  religion  and  Godly  fear. 

The  religious  aspect,  referred  to  by  St.  Paul,!^''  ^f  ^gj-j-,. 
porary  continence  between  married  people — as  an  auxiliary  to 


Rose,  p.  342ff. ;  O.  Schrader,  art.  Chastity  in  Hastings  Encyc.  Rel. 
Ethics,  vol.  iii,  p.  502b).  Here  it  is  indeed  complicated  by  superstitious 
ideas  and  occasionally  by  useless  and  cruel  practices,  such  as  night 
watching  and  severe  fasting.  It  serves,  however,  the  purpose  of  a 
discipline,  and  at  the  same  time  of  a  subtle  stimulus  of  erotic  passion. 
18a  I  Cor.  7  :  5. 


214  PROBLEMS    OF   MARRIAGE. 

prayer — should  not  escape  notice  at  this  point. i''  It  is  not  to 
be  inferred  that  conjugal  relations  have  any  taint  of  impurity, 
or  are  necessarily  a  hindrance  to  the  performance  of  spiritual 
functions ;  only  that  the  general  attitude  of  self-denial,  finding 
expression  in  the  discipline  of  temporary  mutual  abstention, 
proves  favorable  to  the  exercise  of  prayer.  Abstinentia  prcrvia 
servit  precihiis.     (Bengel.) 

The  Anglican  Marriage  Service  has  taken  over  from  the 
New  Testament  a  wonderfully  luminous  expression  about 
conjugal  duty,  one  that  searches  the  inmost  depths  of  mar- 
ried life :  "Ye  husbands,  dwell  with  your  wives  according  to 
knozvledge,  Kara  yvwo-iv."  Men  of  earnest  and  right  purpose 
who,  in  spite  of  the  strain  to  which  celibacy  has  subjected 
them,  in  spite  of  their  failure  to  observe  perfect  chastity,  have 
never  allowed  themselves  to  think  it  a  light  thing  to  know  a 
woman,  will  recognize  how  wide  and  profound  that  knowledge 
is  in  its  conditioning  environment  of  matrimony.  By  means  of 
it  man  and  woman  are  drawn  into  the  most  intimate  physical 
relation,  which  wisely  used  will  create  a  surprisingly  intimate 
moral  and  spiritual  relation  as  well.  A  man  who  wishes  to 
prove  a  good  husband  to  his  wife  will  appreciate  the  responsi- 
bility which  this  privileged  knowledge  lays  upon  him.  Rejoic- 
ing in  its  freedom,  he  will  strive  with  Divine  aid  to  preserve 
and  increase  within  it  every  element  of  purity  and  beauty, 
"rvwo-ts,"  says  the  commentator  Bengel  on  this  passage, ^o 
"dicit  moderationcm,"  a  remark  which  contains  implicitly  a  fine 
appreciation  of  the  meaning  of  the  phrase ;  for  an  instinctive 
self-government  and  healthful  moderation  in  physical  pleas- 


is  O.  Zockler,  Askese  unci  Monchthum,  pp.  451  f. 

20  1  Pet.  3:  7.  Modcratio,  such  a  judicious  government  of  the  wife 
as  implies  self-government  in  the  husband.  Bengel  is  indeed  speaking 
generally  of  the  relation  between  husband  and  wife;  and  we  would 
not  reject  his  wider  interpretation  in  favor  of  our  own  particularized 
one;  but  the  light  of  the  passage  and  of  his  comment  thereon  may  be, 
as  it  were,  focused  on  conjugal  sexuality,  and  will  then  convey  such 
a  special  admonition  as  is  here  suggested. 


PROBLEMS    OF   MARRIAGE.  215 

ure  is  the  natural  fruit  of  conjugal  knowledge  developing 
under  the  shadow  of  the  fear  of  God.  How  many  men  by 
unwatchfulness  and  petulance  in  regard  to  the  carnal  instinct 
have  marred  the  dehcate  life  of  conjugal  knowledge  in  several 
of  its  highest  aspects !  How  many  have  created  bitterness  and 
caused  cruel  disillusionment  by  heedlessly  ignoring  the  unique 
sacredness  of  the  married  relation,  wounding  the  wife's  feel- 
ings or  disturbing  her  moral  sense,  by  coarseness  in  the  ex- 
pression of  their  own  desire — or  by  unkind  levity  in  alluding 
to  the  dangers  which  at  no  great  distance  surround  them 
both;  waking  jealousy  by  thoughtlessly  simulating  it;  rousing 
thoughts  of  adultery  by  tactlessly  jesting  about  it! 

The  cause  which  destroys  married  happiness  may  be  only 
indirectly  connected  with  the  sexual  nature  of  either  of  the 
parties,  some  divergence  of  interests,  some  sensitiveness  or 
irritability  of  temper,  an  inability  to  bear  and  forbear — one 
cause  or  another  out  of  a  whole  multitude. 21     But  there  is  a 


-1  Independently  of  what  is  directly  and  primarily  sexual,  there 
are  enough  of  general  moral  and  psychical  aspects  in  married  life  to 
call  for  treatment  in  such  books  as  The  Rev.  E.  J.  Hardy's  How  to 
be  Happy  though  Married,  and  Still  Happy  though  Married,  where 
much  sympathetic  advice  is  given,  enforced  by  a  wealth  of  anecdote, 
on  mutual  consideration,  forbearance,  gentleness,  tact,  household 
management,  and  other  matters  of  importance  in  relation  to  matri- 
monial happiness.  Luther's  married  life  is  instructive  in  this  general 
connection.  Rade  (Die  Stellung  des  Christenthums  zum  Geschlects- 
leben,  p.  40;  cp.  A.  Thoma,  Katharina  von  Bora,  Kap.  v.)  has  shown 
that  Luther's  marriage  with  Katharina  von  Bora  was  a  calculated  step, 
not  due  to  passion,  still  less  to  mere  lust,  though  in  view  of  the  coarse- 
ness of  the  Reformer's  language,  some  writers  have  ventured  to  put 
the  latter  construction  upon  the  event.  In  marrying,  Luther  and 
Katharina  were  reinstating  marriage  in  its  rightful  place  in  the  social 
system;  and  Rade  has  not  overestimated  the  benefits  which  ensued  to 
the  social  life  of  Germany.  The  pair  sustained  the  trials  and  troubles, 
as  well  as  shared  the  joys  of  marriage  for  twenty  years.  Life  with 
a  man  of  Luther's  masterful  temperament  could  not  always  have  been 
placid.  There  is  evidence  that  on  occasion  the  patience  of  each  was 
sorely  tried.  But  the  common  sense  with  which  both  were  gifted 
was  backed  bv  personal  religion  which  none  of  this  world's  trials  could 


216  PROBLEMS    OF   MARRIAGE. 

class  of  cases  in  which  the  destructive  cause  is  directly  sexual, 
a  change  of  desire  occurring  in  one  or  other  of  the  parties ; 
and  the  consequent  experiencing  of  a  sexual  distaste  for  the 
other  party.  Few  sights  are  more  painful  and  pathetic  than 
that  of  a  desolate  woman  who  has  ceased  to  be  attractive  to  her 
husband,  a  woman  whose  charms  have  faded  all  too  soon  by 
reason  of  ill-health  or  trouble. 

Such  circumstances  may  indeed  create  a  severe  trial  to 
the  physical  man ;  but  the  highest  ethics  of  sex  certainly  de- 
mand that  at  this  point  the  efifort  of  loving  fidelity  should  sup- 
port such  strain  as  there  may  be  upon  the  carnal  sense.  A 
moving  and  profound  appeal  to  the  highest  human  emotions 
is  found  in  the  allegorical  representation  so  well  known  to  the 
prophets  of  the  Old  Testament,22  where  God  appears  as  the 
ever-faithful  Husband  of  the  personified  Israel ;  observing  the 
marriage-covenant  when  the  glory  of  the  wife's  womanhood 
has  been  worn  to  shreds  and  dragged  in  the  dust;  remember- 
ing still,  after  the  passage  of  sad  years,  the  grace  of  the 
woman's  youth  and  the  love  of  her  betrothal-time.  Such  an 
ideal  of  constancy  introduces,  indeed,  other  considerations  than 
those  of  physical  deterioration  in  the  wafe.  In  its  fullness,  it 
is  an  ideal  which  no  husband  in  this  life  can  attain  to ;  but  its 
lesson  is  at  least  practical  and  forceful  in  this  matter  of  the 
decline  of  a  wife's  physical  attractiveness.  Let  a  man  when 
tempted  to  unfaithfulness  or  coldness  toward  his  wife,  con- 
sider and  investigate  the  cause  of  his  temptation ;  and  if  the 
cause  be  the  change  of  desire  here  contemplated,  let  him,  in- 
stead of  alleging  and  exploiting  the  physical  reasons  for  this 


wear  out.  Luther  once  admitted  to  a  friend  that  he  was  at  that 
moment  swallowing  the  pill  of  his  wife's  temper;  but  after  all  was 
ready  to  take  more  of  it.  Katharina  had  no  doubt  the  same  experi- 
ence in  yet  fuller  measure.  But  they  knew  that  the  disharmonies  of 
this  world  pass  away;  and  all  the  more  quickly  if  let  alone.  So  the 
two  stand  before  us  in  history,  spiritually  great  figures,  very  human, — 
it  would  be  difficult  to  weave  idealistic  legends  around  Martin  and 
Katie, — yet  invincibly  and  pathetically  true  and  faithful  and  strong. 
22  Jer.  2:2;  Ezek.  16 ;  Hos.  2 :  16,  al. 


PROBLEMS    OF   MARRIAGE.  217 

change,  in  the  interests  of  lawless  self-indulgence,  summon  to 
his  aid  the  moral  and  spiritual  force  which  the  previous  years 
of  his  married  life  should  have  caused  to  develop;--^  let  him 
prove  that  the  power  of  the  ethical  elements  in  sexual  love 
may  exist  and  increase  even  when  its  physical  balance  is  dis- 
turbed. And  let  a  wife  whose  physical  attractions  fail  in 
greater  or  less  measure  to  win  her  husband's  regard  in  the 
same  degree  as  formerly,  strive  to  compensate,  nay,  far  more 
than  compensate,  for  the  partial  loss,  by  strengthening  the 
subtle  charm  of  feminine  tact,  sweetness  and  grace  of 
character. 

"Happiness  dwells  not,"  says  a  modern  French  writer,-"^ 
"in  the  unbridled  multiplication  of  sensual  pleasures.  Human 
existence  will  find  its  highest  meaning,  its  most  lively  and  en- 
during joy,  in  the  progressing  operations  of  the  mind  and  in 
the  duly  controlled  gratification  of  the  senses.  The  sexes  will 
understand  that  their  happiness  depends  definitely  on  a  large 
sobriety  respecting  indulgence  in  amorous  intercourse." 


23  In  the  progress  of  years,  provided  that  the  rational  control  of 
the  sex  life  is  made  the  object  of  conscious  moral  choice,  various 
psj^chic  forces  will  come  into  play,  pressing  back  the  carnal  impulse 
into  its  proper  perspective  and  due  subordination  in  life  as  a  whole. 
The  cultivation  of  intellectual  interests,  the  extension  of  the  sym- 
pathies not  merely  by  intensified  emotion,  but  by  sustained  thought 
and  active  effort,  everything,  in  short,  that  is  directly  or  indirectly 
implied  in  the  spiritualization  of  human  life  and  in  communion  with 
God  in  Christ — all  this  aggregate  of  spiritual  power,  combining  with 
the  physiological  processes  which  normally  modify  carnal  desire,  tends 
to  produce  in  man,  as  he  passes  the  physical  prime  of  his  sex  life,  not 
necessarily  a  sexual  frigidity,  but  an  increasing  capacity  of  self-con- 
trol and  a  greater  ability  to  respond  to  the  call  of  self-sacrifice  and 
sexual  temperance  which  is  not  infrequently  given  by  the  circumstances 
of  married  life. 

Cp.  the  line  of  thought  followed  by  Leconte,  Evolution  and  Re- 
ligious Thought,  p.  24:  "Youth,  glorious  youth,  must  also  pass.  If 
the  next  highest  group  of  reflective  and  elaborate  faculties  do  not  arise 
and  dominate  in  adult  manhood,  then  progressive  deterioration  of 
character  commences  here — thenceforward  the  whole  nature  becomes 
coarse." 

S'lJ.  Lourbet:    Le  Probleme  des  Sexes,  p.  194  (Paris,  1900). 


218  PROBLEMS    OF   MARRIAGE. 

These  observations  are  framed  in  the  idealistic,  ahnost  the 
illusive,  language  of  theory.  Married  people  will  fail  again 
and  again  to  realize  the  ideal  set  forth  in  them.  But  we  may 
use  them  here  to  illustrate  and  enforce  the  truth  that  one  of 
the  legitimate  objects  of  marriage  is  to  reduce  carnal  desire 
to  its  proper  relative  position  among  the  other  interests  and 
cravings  of  life.  And  as  this  is  its  object,  so  it  is  also  its 
natural  tendency.  In  a  married  life  which  is  otherwise  kindly 
and  religious,  sexual  desire  should  naturally  and  without  any 
severe  strain  tend  to  become  moderate  and  subject  to  reason. 
"Marriage  hath  a  natural  efficacy,  besides  a  virtue  by  Divine 
blessing,  to  cure  the  inconveniences  which  might  otherwise 
afliict  persons  temperate  and  sober. "-^ 

Forster  rightly  calls  physical  conjugal  love  an  impulse  of 
nature  toward  the  higher  forms  of  effort,  a  symbol  of  spiritual 
unity  and  the  productive  interworking  of  two  minds. -**  And 
the  failure,  arising  from  imperfect  education  or  inherent 
spiritual  deficiency,  to  fulfill  these  higher  obligations  of  mar- 
riage, is  an  important  contributing  cause  of  matrimonial  dis- 
aster and  immorality.  Westermarck  has  given  some  striking 
illustrations  of  the  bad  moral  effect  which  a  low  educa- 
tional standard  of  women  and  the  consequent  spiritual  pov- 
erty of  married  life  exercise  upon  nations.-''' 

Finally,  the  moral  purpose  must  learn  to  mark,  and  to 
co-operate  sympathetically  with  the  changes,  ordinary  or  ex- 
traordinary, due  to  age  or  to  illness,  in  the  subject's  constitu- 
tion. The  gratification,  with  its  preceding  strong  excitement, 
which  at  one  time  of  life  may  be  a  seasonable  and  beneficial 
relief,  may  become  in  altered  circumstances  of  health — for  ex- 
ample, by  reason  of  its  accelerating  influence  upon  the  heart's 
action — the  means  of  emphasizing  and  developing  some  latent 
bodily  weakness,   with   prejudicial   or  even   dangerous   effect. 


25  Jeremy  Taylor,  Holy  Living,  ch.  ii,  sec.  3.    Finis. 

26  Forster,  op.  cit.,  p.  242. 

27  Westermarck,    Origin    and    Development    of    the   Moral    Ideas, 
vol.  ii,  pp.  470f. 


PROBLEMS    OF    MARRIAGE.  219 

Such  vigilance  at  this  stage  of  the  sex  Hfe  will  reduce  further 
the  danger  of  inadvisable  self-indulgence  in  marriage.  It  may 
result  in  an  understanding  between  man  and  wife  to  keep  apart 
for  an  indefinite  time ;  albeit  here,  as  elsewhere,  this  result  may 
not  be  arrived  at  without  repeated  mistakes  and  failures,  and 
should  at  all  times  be  considerately  entertained  by  both  parties, 
to  obviate  possible  conjugal  discord. 

There  is  little  difficulty  in  these  days  about  getting  infor- 
mation, conveyed  in  a  popular  and  intelligible  style,  on  the 
hygiene  of  conjugal  intercourse.  Much  instruction  of  the 
kind  may  be  found  in  Dr.  Lyman  Sperry's  book,  Confidential 
Talks  bctci'eoi  Husband  and  IVife.  It  is  true  that  such  infor- 
mation occasionally  contains  inferences  of  doubtful  value,  and 
is  open  to  criticism.  The  suggestion,  e.g.,  which  is  contained 
in  the  remarks  on  page  119  of  Sperry's  book,  that  married 
people  must  allow  themselves  no  caresses  tending  to  arouse 
sexual  excitement  unless  with  the  intention  of  gratifying  it, 
may  require  in  practice  some  modification.  Habitually  pro- 
longed erotic  excitement,  involving  a  heavy  nerve-strain,  is 
certainly  not  to  be  encouraged.  Especially  should  no  attempt 
be  made  to  substitute  habitually  such  excitement  (ungratified) 
for  sexual  intercourse  itself.-'^  This  method  is  known  as  the 
Karezza.  But  Dr.  Sperry's  suggestion  must  not  be  given  an 
extreme  interpretation  savoring  of  prudery;  for  although  it 
is  doubtless  the  duty  as  well  as  the  interest  of  married  couples 
to  watch  and  control  themselves  in  their  erotic  caresses,  the 
prohibition  of  such  caresses,  except  where  sexual  intercourse  is 
actually  contemplated,  would  impose  an  intolerable  yoke  upon 
the  mind  and  conscience. 

The  moral  question  here  involved  may  be  clearly  stated  by 
the  use  of  the  terminology  adopted  and  developed  from  Moll 
by  Havelock  Ellis.^^  One  of  the  impulses  contributing  to  the 
formation  of  the  sexual  instinct  in  man  is,  according  to  Moll's 
analysis,  the  impulse  of  contrectation,  or  the  desire  to  touch 


2S  C/>.  Ellis  und  Moll,  Handbuch  der  Sexualwissenschaften,  p.  699. 
29  Studies,  vol.  iii,  p.  21ff.,  ed.  2. 


220  PROBLEMS    OF   MARRIAGE. 

and  fondle  the  object  loved.  Ellis  proposes  a  word  of  wider 
scope,  "tumescence,"  since  contrectation  is  incidental,  not  es- 
sential fo  the  sex  process  in  its  full  biological  extent.  That, 
however,  does  not  matter  to  us  here ;  because  in  the  present 
connection  contrectation  always  accompanies  tumescence. 
This  latter  condition  produces  sexual  excitement ;  and  the 
normal  end  of  tumescence  is  detumescence,  the  act  by  which 
impregnation  takes  place.  Are  married  people,  then,  to  re- 
strain the  impulse  of  contrectation  under  moral  penalty,  unless 
they  purpose  proceeding  the  full  length,  to  detumescence? 
This  would  be  a  hard  doctrine  of  marriage,  and  would  stunt 
the  development  of  warm  reciprocal  emotions.  By  parity  of 
reasoning  it  would  have  to  be  considered  immoral  for  a  man 
and  woman  to  dance  together,  unless  the  result  of  such  action 
was  an  engagement. 

Indeed,  when  the  sexual  process  in  man  is  viewed  in  ex- 
tenso,  ^s  consisting  of  a  series  of  stages  from  the  first  recip- 
rocal attraction,  through  contrectation  up  to  detumescence  and 
impregnation,  moral  considerations  leave  it  at  least  uncertain 
whether  special  circumstances  may  not  allow  man  to  stop  at 
any  particular  stage,  without  proceeding  to  the  subsequent 
stages.    We  saw  as  much  in  our  chapter  on  birth  control. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  true,  as  has  been  already  affirmed,  that 
married  people  should  always  reverently  consider  the  normal 
end  of  the  impulse  of  contrectation,  and  not  allow  themselves 
in  a  reckless  self-indulgence,  in  calling  that  impulse  into  play, 
or  in  diverting  it  from  its  natural  end. 

While  it  is  urgently  necessary  to  uphold  and  to  strive  for 
the  ideal  of  sexual  temperance  in  the  married  estate,  modern 
society,  not  less  than  ancient,  is  liable  to  witness  the  growth, 
and  experience  the  unwholesome  influence  of  a  falsely  ascetic 
sentiment  in  regard  to  the  physical  use  of  marriage. '^^     \\^e 


30  For  a  doctor's  criticism  of  modern  asceticism  in  respect  of  sex, 
the  body  of  opinion  of  which  Tolstoy  is  the  most  prominent  Hterary 
exponent,  I  may  refer  to  Eulenburg,  in  Senator  and  Kaminer,  op.  cit., 
vol.  ii,  pp.  877ff. 


PROBLEMS   OF   MARRIAGE.  221 

have  already  found  this  sentiment  expressed  in  the  Manichsean 
and  other  systems,  and  in  the  writings  of  certain  modern 
morahsts.  Here  we  refer  to  its  unsystematized  manifestation  in 
priyate  hfe.  Even  where  the  theory  of  false  asceticism  might 
be  repudiated,  it  occasionally  has  some  practical  influence. 
For  example,  great  caution  must  be  used  in  the  endeavor  to 
distinguish  right  from  wrong  in  conjugal  intercourse  by  refer- 
ence to  the  reactionary  feelings  following  coitus.^ ^  The  act 
has  been  adjudged  to  be  wrong  if  followed  by  feelings  of  re- 
gret, shame,  depression,  etc.  These  feelings,  though  they  must 
by  no  means  be  ignored,  do  not  always  form  a  safe  criterion. 
A  religious  man  of  nervous  organization  may  experience  exag- 
gerated reactionary  feelings  of  this  nature,  even  when  he  and 
his  wife  in  the  main  strive  to  regulate  their  life  according  to 
the  canons  of  temperance.  The  moral  effort  he  may  need  is 
partly  one  of  faith,  to  control  the  excess  and  morbid  activity 
of  reactionary  emotions  after  coitus.  Sexual  intercourse  that 
is  innocent  in  itself,  i.e.,  as  performed  in  matrimony  with  a  due 
and  reasonable  regard  to  temperance,  ought  not  to  be  "made 
wrong  by  thinking." 

Near  the  close  of  His  earthly  life,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
acted  in  the  presence  of  His  disciples  a  parable  containing  a 
reference  with  which  we  may  fittingly  close  the  present  chap- 
ter in  our  consideration  of  sexual  morality. 

The  symbolic  act  of  washing  the  disciples'  feet-"^-  viewed 
in  connection  with  the  rest  of  St.  John's  teaching  about  human 
sin,  has  always  been  taken  to  refer  to  the  Divine  forgiveness 
of  sins  of  mere  infirmity,  the  inevitable  stains  afifecting  man's 
moral  nature,  even  when  endued  with  the  highest  spiritual  pur- 
pose. In  St.  John's  mind  there  is  a  clear  distinction  between 
willful  rebellion  against  God,  the  state  of  sin  which  the  man 
whose  soul  is  in  communion  with  God  cannot  enter,'^"^  as  being 
contrary  to  the  law  of  his  renewed  nature;  and  the  sins  of  in- 


^1  Cp.  Sperry,  Husband  and  Wife,  p.  115. 

;i2  St.  Jno.  13  :  5ff. 

•■53  I  Jno.  3  :  8,  9 ;  5:18. 


222  PROBLEMS   OF   MARRIAGE. 

firmity  which  are  found  even  in  the  lives  of  men  of  right  and 
good  purpose,  and  in  regard  to  which  they  need  a  continual 
intercession,  forgiveness,  cleansing.^^ 

The  symbolism  of  Christ's  action  has  no  doubt  a  general 
application ;  but  we  may  suggest  here  that  it  has  a  peculiar 
and  pointed  reference  to  the  moral  infirmities  so  bound  up  in 
our  sexual  nature.  Though  the  language  of  the  narrative  is 
Greek,  its  spirit  and  imagery  are  Oriental :  to  this  passage  we 
may  appropriately  apply  the  remark  of  Harnack  that  the 
Greek  language  lies  upon  the  Gospels  like  a  diaphanous  veil ; 
and  it  requires  hardly  any  effort  to  translate  their  contents  into 
Hebrew  or  Aramaic. 

In  Hebrew  imagery,  then,  "the  feet"  is  a  euphemism  for 
the  sexual  organs,-'"'  and  remembering  this,  we  cannot  fail  to 
see  in  the  symbolic  washing  of  the  feet  from  inevitable  stains, 
the  forgiveness  by  the  Divine  mercy  of  those  declensions  from 
the  true  ideal  of  sexual  morality  which  stain  the  souls  even  of 
men  whose  purpose  is  pure.  Apart  from  the  willful,  deliberate 
sins  of  sex,  the  gross  fornications,  the  cruel  seductions,  the 
abominable  perversions,  the  ingenious  incitements  to  sin,  there 
is  a  whole  world  of  lesser  phenomena,  the  unavoidable  infirmi- 
ties of  sex.  The  full  control  of  the  sexual  nature,  the  perfect 
subordination  of  the  carnal  impulse  to  the  government  of  rea- 
son, the  laws  of  health,  and  the  higher  law  of  self-sacrifice,  is 
an  ideal  which  frequently  is  not  actually  attainable  either  in 
celibacy  or  in  marriage.  In  the  best  of  circumstances,  desire 
is  often  a  source  of  trouble,  even  of  danger.  It  exerts  itself 
with  an  excess  of  force,  or  at  unseasonable  times ;  it  becomes  a 
disturbing  influence,  weakening  the  concentration  of  the  pur- 
pose on  noble  and  elevating  aims.  A  certain  element  of 
morbidness  and  intemperance  mingles  with  it  almost  irre- 
sistibly. The  deeper  grows  one's  insight  into  human  life,  the 
more  sadly  does  one  murmur  in  this  connection  the  question. 


34  I  Jno.  2 :  2. 

3Msa.  6:2;  7:20;  36:12. 


PROBLEMS   OF   MARRIAGE.  223 

"Since  the  first  foundation  of  the  world  what  one  can  say :  'My 
ways  are  pure?'  "  Hardly,  if  at  all,  can  a  man,  though  he  keep 
upright  and  come  by  no  great  and  visible  fall,  escape  the 
"stain  on  the  feet,"  some  hidden  detriment  to  his  sexual 
nature.  And  amid  secret  fears  arising  from  this  cause,  in 
the  hidden  struggle  between  the  flesh  and  the  spirit,  there  is 
much  encouragement  in  the  teaching  of  this  parable.  We  have 
here  the  Divine  assurance  that  so  long  as  a  man's  purpose  is 
right,  so  long  as  he  does  not  turn  aside  in  conscious  and 
cynical  rebellion  from  the  law  of  purity,  so  long  as  his  life 
progresses  toward  the  ideal  of  chastity,  he  will  not  suffer  deep 
and  permanent  loss  from  those  infirmities  which  he  cannot 
wholly  avoid. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

Spiritualized  Sexual  Love. 

Its  History — Its  Basis,  Significance,  and  Place  in  the  Economy 
of  Life. 

Moving  to  and  fro  as  it  does  in  humanity  upon  a  wide  sea 
of  emotions  and  sensations,  sexual  love  is  enabled  to  sound  the 
human  spirit  to  some  of  its  remotest  depths,  w^hether  of  good 
or  of  ill.  Strange  and  weird  indeed  are  the  perverted  forms 
of  sexual  emotion  which,  as  we  have  had  occasion  to  observe 
elscAvhere  in  this  volume,  lie  in  the  obscure  deeps  of  our  social 
life.  In  other  directions  sexual  love  discovers  within  man 
spiritual  movements  and  yearnings  which  the  soul  can  hardly 
interpret  even  to  itself,  a  love  of  the  beautiful,  a  longing  for  its 
rarest,  most  refined  manifestations — such  a  love  as  elevates 
human  nature  toward  the  Divine. 

Both  the  history  and  the  analysis  of  the  love  ecstasy  in 
humanity  are  surrounded  with  great  difificulty  and  obscurity. 
The  opinion  has  been  entertained  that  the  spiritualized  sexual 
longing,  which  men  and  women  of  the  modern  world  often 
experience,  made  its  appearance  in  mankind  during  the  age  of 
chivalry,  animality  being  before  that  time  the  chief  element  in 
love.  It  may  safely  be  asserted,  however,  that  in  ages  long 
anterior  to  the  age  of  chivalry, — as,  analogously,  in  primitive 
races  of  today^, — the  sexes  had  felt  the  mutual  magnetic  attrac- 
tion of  souls  with  a  force  which  at  times  transcended  that  of 
carnal  desire. 

The  sensuous  side  of  sexual  love  has  been  portrayed  with 
marvelous  power  and  warmth  of  coloring  in  poems  like  the 


1  "Many  savages,"  says  R.  R.  Marrett  (art.  Ethics  in  Hastings, 
Encyc.  Rel.  Ethics,  vol.  v,  p.  432a)  "indulge  in  a  strain  of  romantic 
love,  the  product  of  a  kind  of  awe  supervening  on  a  basis  of  passion." 
Cp.  Floss  &  Bartels,  Das  Weib,  Bd.  i,  p.  614. 

(224) 


SPIRITUALIZED    SEXUAL   LOVE.  225 

Incantation  of  Theocritus  and  the  Song  of  Songs.  In  the 
former  of  these,  and  in  the  latter  also,  if  we  disregard  the 
mystical  interpretation,  the  sensuous  element  is  most  promi- 
nent ;  indeed,  it  is  only  in  the  circumstances  which  may  be 
supposed  to  lie  in  the  background  of  the  Song,  and  support 
the  plot,  if  plot  there  be,  that  any  other  motive  can  be  found 
other  than  those  which  spring  from  the  rapturous  contempla- 
tion of  physical  beauty. 

Although,  however,  its  character  may  primarily  be  sensu- 
ous, the  love  of  physical  beauty  does  not  remain  forever  co- 
extensive with  the  carnal  hunger  of  the  sexual  instinct.-  It 
awakens  higher  instincts  of  the  soul.  It  gives  an  impulse  to 
the  development  of  moral  perceptions,  and  of  spiritual  emo- 
tions. When  we  find  in  classical  literature  instances  of  pure 
self-sacrifice,  deep  emotion,  and  unshaken  fidelity  having  their 
roots  in  sexual  love,  as  in  the  characters  of  Penelope  in  Homer, 
of  Alcestis  in  Euripides,  of  Panegyris  and  Pinacium  in  Plautus. 
of  Sostrata  in  Terence;  and  in  the  history  of  Pollutia's  widow- 
hood and  death  in  Tacitus;  when  we  find  that  the  Hebrew 
word  ahabhah  is  used  with  equal  facility  of  sexual  attraction. ^ 
and  of  the  Divine  love,"*  we  must  conclude  that  the  "love  of 
women,"  even  at  the  point  of  evolution  which  the  human  race 
had  reached  two  or  three  thousand  years  ago,  had  frequently 
other  and  more  refined  elements  than  the  carnal  impulse ;  and 
that  the  ecstasy  of  expectant  sexual  love  at  times  reached  then, 
as  it  sometimes  does  now,  an  intensity  in  which  carnal  excite- 
ment no  longer  predominates  in  the  consciousness. 

There  are  in  fact  sufficient  proofs  of  the  existence  of 
spiritualized  sex  love  in  antiquity ;  though  it  is  doubtless  true, 
as  Bloch  and  Erwin  Rohde  maintain,  that  the  majority  of  think- 
ers in  that  age  were  not  only  perplexed  by  but  unsympathetic 
with  it,  and  thought  of  it  as  a  disease  of  the  spirit.^ 


-  Cl>.  Gemelli,  op.  cit.,  p.  22. 
•^11  Sam.  13:  15. 

4  Hos.  11:4,  Jer.  31  :  3,  Is.  63 :  9,  Zeph.  3 :  17. 

5  Bloch,  Die  Prostitution,  Bd.  i,  pp.  41,  228f. ;  Lucret.  iv,  1062ff. 


226  SPIRITUALIZED    SEXUAL   LOVE. 

The  strange  spiritual  intensity  of  sexual  love  attracted  the 
notice  of  Plato,  whose  theory  of  its  causation,  while  it  pos- 
tulates the  existence  of  the  carnal  impulse,  allows  for  the  move- 
ment of  subtle  forces  in  the  mind  agitated  by  sexual  expectancy 
— forces  which,  even  if  they  be  considered  to  exist  in  germ  in 
the  carnal  impulse,^  if  they  cannot  wholly  in  this  life  sever 
their  connection  with  it,  none  the  less  afford  an  indication  of 
an  ideal  state  in  which  the  human  soul  filled  with  sexual  love 
may  rise  above,  may  become  in  some  measure  detached  from, 
carnal  excitement;  may  experience  and  harbor  intense  and 
eager  longings  for  the  possession  and  enjoyment  of  beauty, 
longings  which  have  larger  elements  of  spiritual  and  moral, 
than  of  carnal  attraction. 

Plato's  conception  of  love  as  a  cosmic  and  not  merely  a 
planetary  force — a  contrast  drawn  out  by  F.  Myers''' — is  thus 
of  far-reaching  significance,  raising,  as  it  does,  sexual  love  in 
its  highest  aspects,  above  the  transience  of  Earth  and  Time,  and 
demonstrating  its  connection  with  eternal  processes. 

It  cannot  escape  the  notice  of  the  student  of  the  Gospels 
that  Christ  had  a  powerful  influence  over  women.  That  He 
practised  reserve  in  His  dealings  with  them  may  be  inferred 
from  St.  John  4 :  27  ;^  yet  his  Person  had  an  intense  attraction 
for  them.^     Other  great  leaders  of  men  have  possessed  this 


^Cp.  Letourneau,  Evol.  of  Marriage,  p.  9:  "If  we  are  willing  to 
descend  to  the  foundation  of  things,  we  find  that  human  love  is  essen- 
tially rut  in  an  intelligent  being.  It  exalts  all  the  vital  forces  of  the 
man  just  as  rut  overexcites  those  of  the  animal.  If  it  seems  to  differ 
extremely  from  it,  this  is  simply  because  in  man  the  procreative  need, 
a  primordial  need  beyond  all  others,  in  radiating  from  highly  developed 
nervous  centers,  awakens  and  sets  in  commotion  an  entire  psychic  life 
unknown  to  the  animal." 

">  Human  Personality,  i,  335ff. 

8  It  was  especially  forbidden  for  a  man  to  speak  to  a  woman  about 
questions  of  the  Law  (Luthardt  in  loc).  The  astonishment  displayed 
by  the  disciples  on  this  occasion  testifies  to  the  Master's  ordinary  re- 
gard for  the  rabbinic  custom. 

9  Matt.  27:55,  Mark  15:40,  Luke  8:2,  23:49. 


SPIRITUALIZED    SEXUAL   LOVE.  227 

peculiar  power  of  attracting  to  themselves  the  admiring  and 
loving  regard  of  woman,  of  winning  from  women  a  voluntary 
obedience  for  the  furtherance  of  their  purposes.  Themistocles 
in  a  moment  of  danger  saved  his  life  by  a  decisive  appeal,  an 
appeal  which  was  yet  masterful  and  partook  of  the  nature  of  a 
command,  made  to  a  woman. 

One  of  the  chief  elements  in  this  mental  condition  in  the 
woman  is  an  unconscious  sublimated  sexuality-  Christ's  per- 
sonality, by  winning  the  affections  and  dominating  the  will  of 
women,  subjugates  the  perfect  female  organism,  and  attracts  to 
itself  the  whole  range  of  feminine  emotion.  The  history  of 
female  insanity,  as  appears  from  cases  given  by  Havelock  Ellis, 
shows  how,  when  the  balance  of  the  religious  emotions  is  upset, 
the  latent,  subconscious  physical  element  may  temporarily  re- 
assert itself  and  dominate  the  spiritualized  sexuality. i^' 

The  common  experience  of  mankind  shows,  not  less 
clearly  than  philosophical  speculations,  the  existence  of  these 
connected  yet  diverse  elements  in  love.  Men  and  women  of 
rich,  refined,  and  generous  natures  feel  within  themselves  a 
longing  of  unutterable  intensity  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  ideal 
counterpart  and  complement  of  themselves.  This  deep,  in- 
definable longing  for  ideal  beauty,  and  the  more  or  less  im- 
perfect realizations  which  meet  it  in  the  actual  experience  of 
life,  have  been  over  and  over  again  described  and  dwelt  upon,  as 
far  as  the  powers  of  human  insight,  language  and  imagination 
were  able  to  do  so,  in  the  literatures  of  mankind.  The  highest 
imaginative  genius  wearies  itself  in  its  efforts  to  shadow  forth 
a  representation  of  spiritualized  sexual  love.  Some  of  the 
finest  ethical  conceptions  in  literature  have  been  inspired  by 
the  idea  of  the  love-ecstasy ;  it  has,  in  truth,  a  mighty  influence 
over  the  natural  dispositions  of  men,  and  while  it  lasts,  en- 
dues them  abundantly  even  with  those  virtues  in  which  they 
have  been  most  conspicuously  lacking.  Men  of  the  world 
whose  minds  have  become  mature  in  coarseness,  and  who  in 


1*^  Cfy.  supra,  pp.  26f. 


228  SPIRITUALIZED    SEXUAL   LOVE. 

their  lives  repudiate,  more  and  more  expressly,  high  moral 
ideals,  may  indeed  and  do  see  nothing  in  a  Woman's  outward 
beauty  but  a  stimulus  to  sexual  excitement ;  but  there  is  that 
in  the  minds  of  younger  men  which  causes  them  instinctively 
to  look  for  moral  beauty  alongside  of  the  highest  physical 
beauty;  and  in  many  love-affairs,  especially  those  of  young 
lovers,  a  point  is  reached  at  which  sexual  expectancy  becomes 
almost  overpowered  by  ethical  aspiration.'^^  It  is  indeed  true 
that  if  such  an  intense  reciprocal  love  leaves  no  room  in  the 
two  hearts  which  experience  it,  for  wider  sympathies,  it  takes 
on  the  nature  of  a  false  development. ^^^  But  love  may  be 
almost  indefinitely  intense  without  suffering  the  intrusion  of 
such  a  circumstance. 

But  these  higher  developments  of  love  are  as  yet  uncertain 
in  their  duration.  Their  progress  needs  to  be  watched  and 
considered  with  soberness ;  otherwise  the  love  ecstasy,  with  its 
vast  power  of  stirring  the  emotions  and  moral  consciousness, 
will  be  like  a  potent  draught  which  first  invigorates  and  in- 
spires, and  then  induces  exhaustion  and  debility.  Even  in  a 
love  affair  which  seems  to  its  actors  purely  spiritual,  carnal 
excitement  sooner  or  later  supervenes.  Indeed,  these  emo- 
tional developments  of  love  are  not  to  be  rashly  translated  into 
practice,  with  a  view  to  eliminating  from  the  matrimonial  rela- 
tionship the  element  of  animality  which  naturally  and  rightly 
belongs  to  it.  The  idea  of  marriage  as  a  purely  spiritual  bond 
without  any  carnal  connection  does  not  seem,  in  the  circum- 
stances of  this  present  life  of  ours,  a  healthy  or  acceptable  one. 

History  records  some  collective  movements  for  limiting  sex  love 
entirely  to  its  spiritual  side.  The  largest  and  most  important  of  these 
belongs  to  early  Christianity.  Much  attention  has  been  recently  called 
to  the  so-called  syneisactic  unions,  in  which  Christian  men  and  women 
— the  latter  were  called  in  Greek  agapctcc  and  in  Latin  virgines  subiii- 
troductce — lived  together  in  spiritual  matrimony.  The  enthusiasm  of 
early  Christianity  made  this  in  some  cases  possible ;  and  this  remark- 


11  Cp.  Thomson  and  Geddes,  Problems  of  Sex,  pp.  46ff. 
iiac/).  Forel,  op.  cit.,  p.  118  (ed.  10). 


SPIRITUALIZED    SEXUAL   LOVE.  229 

able  development  is  reflected  in  a  romantic  literature  of  which  some 
specimens  have  survived.  The  movement  was  in  fact  the  contribution 
of  the  age  to  the  solution  of  the  sex  problem,  but  though  it  gave 
humanity  a  brief  glimpse  into  the  psychical  possibilities  of  the  sex  life, 
it  effected  no  permanent  moral  or  social  amelioration.  In  many 
quarters,  particularly  in  the  North  African  Church,  the  aspiring  spirit- 
ualized love  degenerated  into  a  mere  tantalization  and  erotic  bravado ; 
and  public  opinion  and  ecclesiastical  authority  combined  to  suppress  it. 
It  has  reappeared  occasionally  down  to  our  own  day.  I  heard  rumors  of 
it  some  years  ago  in  New  Zealand,  in  connection  with  a  religious  sect. 
But  until  the  spiritual  evolution  of  the  race  has  reached  higher  levels 
than  at  present,  it  is  neither  possible  nor  desirable  to  exploit  on  a  large 
social  scale  the  idea  of  spiritualized  sex  love.i^^ 

Nevertheless,  as  aforesaid,  ecstatic  love  should  be  mor- 
ally bracing.  It  should  be  helpful  in  the  work  of  directing 
and  controlling  the  physical  desire.  Further,  as  a  psychical 
phenomenon  it  has  a  bearing  on  the  interpretation  of  life. 
"Love,"  said  Renan,  "is  the  most  wonderful  and  the  most  sug- 
gestive fact  in  the  world."  The  existence  of  the  love  ecstasy 
may  point  to  the  future  development  in  the  human  soul  of 
strange  powers  of  love,  and  of  a  spiritual  appetite  for  beauty. 
The  Christian  revelation  does  not  make  clear  the  future  of  sex 
in  the  hereafter.  The  doctrine  of  a  continuous  personal  iden- 
tity which  seems  to  be  implied  in  the  New  Testament  makes  it 
evident  that  the  division  into  sexes  in  this  world  must  some- 
how bear  permanent  fruit  in  another.  Though  marriage  as  we 
conceive  of  it  must  vanish  with  the  things  of  this  world,  it  is 
not  perhaps  to  be  inferred  that  there  will  be  no  special  unions, 
the  outcome  of  a  special  kind  or  degree  of  reciprocal  love,  in 
the  next  life.  The  desire  of  beauty  in  the  human  soul  may 
become  more  and  more  wondrously  illumined,  refined  and 
spiritualized,  so  as  to  awaken  new  capacities  of  taking  pleasure 
in  a  mutual  relation  of  love,  capacities  which,  however  imper- 


^^^  On  the  whole  subject  see  H.  Ellis,  o/>.  cit.,  vol.  vi,  pp.  153ff. ; 
Duchesne,  Early  Church  History  (E.  tr.),  pp.  370ff. ;  Neander,  Church 
History  (E.  tr.),  vol.  i,  pp.  384 f. ;  Ziegler,  Gesch.  der  Christ.  Ethik,  pp. 
175f. ;  Lydia  Stocker  in  Die  Neue  Gen.,  Heft  x,  pp.  413ff.;  H.  Achelis, 
art.  Agapetse,  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Ethics. 


230  SPIRITUALIZED    SEXUAL   LOVE. 

fectly  we  may  apprehend  their  existence  now,  even  when  our 
taste  for  sexual  enjoyment  is  most  exalted  and  detached  from 
the  carnal  instinct,  may  conceivably  absorb  into  themselves  and 
thus  transform  the  carnal  appetite  which  under  present  condi- 
tions moves  with  such  a  vast  power  the  whole  being  of  man. 

St.  Augustine  thus  records  his  thought  about  the  future 
relation  of  the  sexes  : — ■ 

"To  me  they  seem  to  think  most  justly,  who  doubt  not  that 
both  sexes  shall  rise  again  .  .  .  the  members  of  the 
woman  shall  not  be  adapted  to  their  former  use,  but  framed  for 
a  new  beauty,  one  by  which  the  beholder  is  not  allured  to  lust, 
which  shall  not  then  be,  but  God's  wisdom  and  mercy  shall  be 
praised,  which  made  that  to  be  which  was  not,  and  delivered 
from  corruption  that  which  was  made."i-  This  passage  ex- 
presses a  well-grounded  hope  of  the  ultimate  realization,  amid 
appropriate  conditions,  of  an  exalted  spiritual  ideal.  !■* 

The  principle  of  consolation  which  the  Christian  faith  in- 
troduces into  the  trials,  disappointments,  and  seemingly  abortive 
developments  of  sex  love  is  to  some  extent  amplified  and  ren- 
dered explicit  by  the  science  of  psychics  or  psychical  research, 
of  which  spiritism  forms  a  province.  The  material  upon  which 
students  of  this  subject  have  to  work  is  in  the  first  instance 
the  rough  product  of  certain  psychological  processes  whose 
modus  operandi  is  as  yet  imperfectly  understood.  Much  of 
this  is  merely  subjective;  but  when  the  whole  body  of  crude 
material  has  been  critically  sifted,  there  remains  a  certain 
amount, — what  may  be  called  the  corrected  material, — whose 
subjective  origin  in  the  medium's  or  sensitive's  mind  is  de- 
monstrably most  improbable ;  nor  will  any  stretch  of  the  tele- 
pathic hypothesis  explain  its  appearance. i-^  Enough  of  such 
corrected  material  has  stood  the  severe  testings  and  siftings  of 
psychological  experts  to  be  susceptible  of  interpretation,  or,  it 
would  be  truer  to  say  of  some  of  it,  to  interpret  itself ;  and  on 


12  De  Civ.  Dei,  xxii,  17. 

14  Cp.  Edersheim,  Life  and  Times,  ii,  402. 

15  See  A.  Hude,  The  Evidence  for  Communication  with  the  Dead. 


SPIRITUALIZED    SEXUAL   LOVE.  231 

the  basis  of  this,  one  or  two  remarkable  attempts  have  been 
made  to  construct  an  outHne  picture  of  a  life  beyond  this.^^ 

The  reason  of  the  thing  suggests,  and  some  of  the  most 
reliable  results  of  modern  psychical  research  indicate,  that  in 
the  spiritual  existence  the  phenomenon  of  sex  obtains  a  cer- 
tain continuity ;  sex  is  reproduced  under  changed  and  higher 
conditions. 1'^^  It  is  not  merely  that  spiritual  appearances  take 
place  in  the  sexual  form  which  belonged  to  them  in  this  life, — 
that  might  be  merely  an  expedient  to  enable  recognition,  and 
the  appearances  are  probably  in  all  cases  no  more  than  projec- 
tions or  adumbrations  of  the  personality  behind  them.  But 
more  than  this,  the  motive  of  the  extremely  remarkable  au- 
tomatism known  to  students^"  as  the  Lethe  incident^^  is  clearly 
that  of  confirming  by  an  elaborate  and  beautiful  scheme  of 
literary  allusions  the  proposition  made  by  F.  W.  H.  Myers  in 
his  lifetime  that  "the  loves  of  earth  persist. "^^^  It  would  surely 
be  easier  to  bear  the  trials  which  befall  love  in  this  world, — 
as  when,  for  instance,  two  persons  feel  bound  by  moral  con- 
siderations to  disallow  the  temporal  expression  of  the  mutual 
love  they  feel  rising  within  them, — if  people  could  feel  assured 
that  such  an  incident  in  their  lives  would  explain  and  justify 
itself  in  the  hereafter;  that  their  spiritual  experience  in  com- 
mon will  not  be  wasted  or  forgotten, — "no  poppies  ever  grew 
on  Elysian  shores" ;  that  the  pain  of  self-denial  and  separa- 
tion here  will  produce  for  them  a  very  garden  of  the  gods 
there;  that  for  them,  Venus,  purified,  chastened  and  trans- 
formed, will  come  to  her  own  at  last.2t> 


16  E.g.,  H.  A.  Dallas's  Mors  Janua  Vitas. 

i6a]\jorman  Pearson,  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  (Sept.,  1914), 
reasoning  from  biological  data,  reaches  the  same  conclusion. 

1^  I  mean  the  students  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  to 
which  I  have  belonged  for  nine  years. 

18  S.  P.  R.  Proc.  (London),  pts.  Ix,  Ixiii. 

1!)  Myers,  Human  Personality  and  its  Survival  of  Bodily  Death, 
vol.  ii,  p.  287. 

2"  I  allude  here  to  expressions  in  the  Lethe  incident  (See  S.  P.  R. 
Proc,  pt.  Ix,  pp.  95ff.). 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Modesty. 

Origin  and  Purpose  of  Modesty — Biblical  Estimates  of — Modesty 
Among  Women — Woman's  Right  of  Marriage — Woman's  Special  Sex- 
ual Difficulties. 

Modesty  is  an  extremely  important  part  of  sexual  morality 
in  modern  civilization.  The  forms  of  it  with  which  we  are 
familiar  are  the  product  of  many  causes  operating  through 
long  ages.     It  has  peculiar  developments  in  the  female  sex. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  the  present  chapter  to  attempt  any 
further  estimate  of  these  causes,  already  briefly  discussed  in  our 
first  chapter.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  something  in  the  moral 
constitution  of  man  responds  readily  to^  their  action. 

Modesty  receives  very  beautiful  and  delicate  expression  in 
quite  primitive  races.  Ploss-Bartel's  book,  Das  Weib,  contains 
some  illustrations  of  Terra  del  Fuegan  women. i  They  are 
naked  or  nearly  so ;  but  we  are  informed  that  when  the  pictures 
were  obtained  modesty  of  attitude  was  an  unmodifiable  feature. 
A  traveller  was  struck  with  the  modesty  of  Jakun  women. - 

But,  as  it  is  a  psychological  law  that  an  instinct  will  vacate 
the  field  in  favor  of  a  stronger  one,  even  a  high  degree  of 
native  modesty,  and  strengthened  moreover  by  upbringing  and 
social  traditions,  may  succumb  to  such  an  instinct  as  self- 
preservation;  as  when  during  epidemics  refined  ladies  on  their 
sickbeds  have  accepted  the  most  intimate  services  from  rough 
and  vulgar  men.  "Niuna,  quantunque  leggiadra,  o  bella,  o  gen- 
tildonna  fosse,  infermando,  non  curava  d'avere  a'suoi  servigi 
uomo,  qual  che  egli  si  fosse,  o  giovane,  o  altro,  ed  a  lui  senza 
alcuna  vergogna  ogni  parte  del  corpo  aprire,  non  altrimenti  che 


1  Das  Weib,  8,  Bd.  i,  pp.  490ff. 

-  Skeat  and  Blagden,   Pagan  Races  of  the  Malay  Peninsula,  vol. 
ii.  p.  102. 

(232) 


MODESTY.  233 

ad  una  femmina  avrebbe  fatto,  solo  che  la  necessita  della  sua 
infermita  il  richiedesse."-^ 

As  we  should  expect,  modesty  finds  a  place  in  the  ideals 
of  character  set  forth  in  the  Bible.  The  sexual  nature  and  all 
that  pertain  to  it  are  to  be  treated  with  reverence  in  speech  and 
in  act ;  not  spoken  of  coarsely,"*  unnecessarily,-^  or  with  an  evil 
motive.  The  more  glaring  offenses  against  modesty  are 
condemned  as  shamefulness  (aiVxpoTr/s),  and  shameful  talk 
(alcrxpoXoyia) .  The  special  obligation  of  modesty  in  women  is 
recognized.  Women  are  not  to  ape  masculinity  or  strive  for 
prominence  in  assemblies  of  men.^  In  two  passages,'''  where 
married  women  seem  to  be  specially  in  the  writers'  minds,  they 
are  commanded  to  set  off  their  charms  with  modesty  and 
soberness,  in  strong  contrast  to  the  profuse  and  immodest 
adornment  of  former  daughters  of  Jerusalem. ^ 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  thoughts  of  the  writers 
of  antiquity  about  women  for  the  most  part  center  round  her  in 
her  capacity  of  wife.  And  modesty  in  a  wife,  in  a  woman  who 
no  longer  feels  the  void  in  her  life  which  marriage  alone  fills, 
who  needs  not  to  exert  her  powers  of  sexual  attraction  save  in 
the  intimate  relationship  upon  which  she  has  entered,  is  always 
highly  valued  by  men.  Thus  Sirach  26:  15,  "Grace  upon  grace 
is  a  shamefast  woman  (yw^  aio-xwrr^pa)." 

But  modesty  has  many  subsidiary  developments ;  and  on 
investigation,  some  of  these  will  be  found  to  be  neither  reason- 
able nor  consonant  with  the  ethical  tenor  of  Christianity.  The 
fact  that  reserve  and  caution  in  regard  to  the  performance  of 
nature's  necessary  functions  are  sometimes  carried  to  excess  in 
Anglo-Saxon  society  may  be  hardly  worth  more  than  a  passing 
allusion.      Overdelicacy    in    the   matter,    in    circumstances    of 


3  Boccaccio,  Descrizione  della  peste  dell'anno  1348. 

4  Col.  3  :  8. 

5Eph.  5:  12,  II  Cor.  4:2. 

6  1  Cor.  11:2-16,  14:34fif. 

7  I  Tim.  29.    I  Pet.  3:8. 

8  Isa.  3  :  18. 


234  MODESTY. 

physical  distress,  is  no  part  of  a  just  ethical  scheme.  Women, 
particularly,  will  sometimes  put  up  with  great  and  injurious 
inconveniences,  owing  to  some  remote  or  imaginary  danger  of 
publicity.  A  society  which  exacts  such  a  degree  of  modesty  is 
pressing  the  need  of  it  too  far.  On  the  other  hand,  some  Euro- 
pean nations  pay  too  little  attention  to  ordinary  modesty. 
They  neglect  from  the  first  to  educate  the  feeling  for  it,  with 
the  result  that  much  unpleasing  and  unnecessary  openness  is 
exhibited,  by  adults  as  well  as  by  children,  in  the  connection 
just  referred  to. 

The  question  of  greatest  practical  interest  in  connection 
with  modesty  relates  to  woman's  right  of  seeking  marriage. 
The  time  has  come  to  examine  afresh  and  work  out  in  detail 
the  principles  laid  down  in  our  chapter  viii. 

It  has  been  argued  in  this  work  that  man  has  a  right  of 
marriage ;  and  that  the  power  of  sexual  desire  within  him  is 
a  factor  of  very  great  importance  in  his  decision  with  regard  to 
claiming  that  right.  If  continence  becomes  intolerable  and 
injurious  to  health  and  work,  marriage,  even  in  circumstances 
which  seem  to  render  the  step  imprudent,  becomes  in  some 
measure  justifiable.  But  in  regard  to  women,  the  question 
arises  whether,  in  the  event  of  a  severe  and  intolerable  strain 
upon  a  woman's  nervous  system  arising  from  this  cause^ — a 
condition  which,  though  perhaps  rare,  is  by  no  means  non- 
existent— the  greater  obligation  to  modesty  in  woman  still  re- 
fuses to  allow  her  to  seek,  if  not  by  actual  request,  yet  by  the 
no  less  effective  means  of  attraction,  the  relief  of  marriage. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  if  the  obligation  of  modesty 
presses  unfairly  on  one  sex,  economic  considerations,  the 
anxiety  about  ways  and  means,  are  the  special  burden  of  the 
other.    Each  sex,  in  a  state  of  civilization,  has  its  own  peculiar 


^  Havelburg  describes  the  physical  and  other  indications  of  strain 
— it  may  be  frequently  semiconscious  strain — noticeable  as  the  effect 
of  enforced  celibacy  in  the  female  sex.  (Senator  and  Kaminer,  op.  cit., 
vol.  i,  pp.  193,  294.) 


MODESTY.  235 

and  sometimes  grievous  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  legitimate 
satisfying  and  developing  of  the  sexual  nature. 

But  while  women,  even  in  cases  where  the  task  of  restrain- 
ing erotic  passion  is  exceptionally  painful,  are  not  justified  in 
rashly  disregarding  the  special  obligation  of  their  sex  to 
modesty,  that  obligation  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  an  iron  yoke, 
confining  all  with  a  uniform  rigidity.  Complete  sexual  pas- 
sivity is  no  part  of  the  anabolic  habit. ^^  Lourbeti^  points  out 
that  the  ovum  is  wrongly  thought  of  as  remaining  immobile 
when  expecting  the  approach  of  the  sperm.  On  the  contrary, 
it  manifests  slight  movements  in  the  direction  of  the  sperm. i^ 

There  is  little  difficulty  in  establishing  the  proposition  that 
the  obligation  of  modesty  is  not  precisely  the  same,  has  not  the 
same  ethical  bearings,  in  the  case  of  the  unmarried,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  married  woman. 

Westermarcki-5  has  adduced  a  great  mass  of  evidence  to 
show  that  mankind  in  a  primitive  state  allows  to  unmarried 
women  a  certain  freedom  in  exercising  sexual  attraction  by 
self-decoration  and  similar  means,  which  is  not  allowed  in  the 
same  degree  to  married  women. 

Similarly,  in  the  view  of  the  Biblical  writers,  modesty  does 
not  bind  women  to  a  sexual  passivity.  The  doctrine  that  the 
married  woman  is  not  to  infringe  conjugal  rights  by  making 
herself  sexually  attractive  to  men  other  than  her  own  husband, 
is,  as  we  have  seen,  enunciated  in  the  Bible ;  but  it  does  not 
seem  to  be  implied  that  an  unmarried  woman  is  to  make  no 
effort  to  acquire  a  husband.  On  the  contrary,  when  circum- 
stances emphasize  the  need  of  marriage  in  a  woman's  life,  great 


i*J  Fere  (L'Instinct  Sexuel,  pp.  42,  188)  says  that  for  the  female 
to  manifest  instincts  of  sexual  pursuit  is  a  sign  of  inversion.  This  con- 
tention must  be  interpreted  with  considerable  caution.  By  no  means 
every  manifestation  of  sexual  activity  in  the  female  ought  to  be  classed 
as  "sexual  pursuit,"  and  branded  as  un feminine. 

11  Le  Probleme  des  Sexes,  p.  16. 

1-  Cp.  Geddes  and  Thomson,  Evol.  of  Sex,  p.  151 ;  id.,  Sex,  pp. 
47f. ;  Forel,  op.  cit.,  p.  64;  C.  Gasquoine  Hartley,  op.  cit.,  ch.  viii. 

!•''  Hist,  of  Hum.  Marriage,  ch.  ix. 


236  MODESTY. 

freedom  seems  to  be  allowed  her,  by  Biblical  morality,  in  order 
to  compass  that  end.  St.  Paul  recognized  that  sexual  emotion 
might  make  single  life  impracticable  to  younger  women. i-*  He 
would  hardly  have  given  them  such  emphatic  advice  to  marry 
had  he  considered  it  always  immodest  in  a  woman  to  endeavor 
consciously  to  attract  a  man,  with  a  view  to  marriage. 

Unmarried  women,  in  ancient  Hebrew  and  Jewish  society, 
enjoyed  a  large  amount  of  liberty,  which  is  not  ordinarily  con- 
sidered by  Biblical  writers  a  matter  for  reprobation.  Some 
girls,  it  is  true,  then  as  now  abused  liberty,  and  eagerly  sought 
after  pleasure  and  admiration  in  many  quarters.  Thus  Sirach 
warns  a  father  to  keep  strict  watch  on  a  headstrong  (dStaT/aeVTO)) 
daughter  with  a  shameless  eye.i^  But  here  he  has  in  mind 
the  case  of  girls  who,  whenever  they  get  a  chance,  will  wantonly 
indulge  their  sexual  inclinations ;  not  those  who,  whatever  may 
be  the  strength  of  their  passions,  have  yet  a  pure  will ;  and  who 
would  not  seek  for  sexual  gratification  outside  of  the  married 
state. 

Such  passages  do  not  weaken  our  general  position  that 
neither  natural  nor  Scriptural  morality  misapprehend  the 
amorous  impulse  in  the  female  sex  so  far  as  to  brand  as  im- 
modest in  a  woman  every  conscious  attempt  to  give  expression 
to  the  desire  for  marriage  which  she  cannot  refuse  to  enter- 
tain in  her  inner  being.  The  morality  of  a  woman's  use  of  her 
charms  must  be  tested  more  by  her  motive  than  by  conventional 
opinion.  This  latter,  indeed,  in  spite  of  its  frequent  unreason- 
ableness, is  valuable  as  affording  at  least  a  temporary  check  to 
action ;  and  thereby  giving  opportunity  for  the  proper  con- 
sideration of  motive.  People  impelled  by  a  strong  impulse, 
such  as  the  erotic  impulse,  cannot  always  be  sure  of  the  justice 
of  their  own  motive.  Many  a  woman  has  doubtless  been  re- 
strained by  convention  from  acting  on  an  erotic  impulse  which, 
however  pure  it  appeared  in  her  own  eyes,  would  have  led  to 


"I  Tim.  5:  11. 

15  Sir.  26:  10,  42:11. 


MODESTY.  237 

disaster.  Even  a  conventional  modesty  is  something  of  a  pro- 
tection to  chastity. 

But  what  is  here  maintained  is  that  woman's  sexual  rights 
— the  question  whether  that  right  to  sexual  intercourse  which 
every  creature,  male  or  female,  possessed  of  a  sexual  nature 
must  have,  is  in  a  particular  case  to  be  claimed  or  waived — ■ 
cannot  be  estimated,  cannot  be  decided,  in  all  cases,  merely  by 
reference  to  conventional  standards  and  ideas  of  modesty.  In 
woman's  life,  as  in  man's,  exceptional  dif^culties  must  be  met 
in  exceptional  ways. 

Isaiah  (4:1)  gives  us  an  ideal  picture  of  women  in  a  time 
of  desperation,  pathetically  and  eagerly  seeking  for  husbands ; 
fearing  the  reproach  of  desolation  more  than  the  irregularity 
of  their  request.  Such  a  picture  must  have  some  reflection  in 
fact.  More  impressive  still  is  the  story  of  Ruth,  who  comes 
before  us  as  one  of  the  purest  and  most  beautiful  feminine 
characters  in  the  Bible;  yet  who  made  known  her  desire  for  a 
husband  by  methods  involving  a  superb  disregard  of  modesty, 
as  we  consider  it  nowadays. i^ 

After  making  full  allowance  for  the  difference  in  the 
moral  standards  and  ideas  existing  in  Hebrew  antiquity  from 
those  of  our  own  time,  there  is  a  permanent  significance,  a  doc- 
trine of  enduring  value,  about  the  sexual  rights  of  women,  in- 
herent in  the  passages  referred  to.  They  enforce  our  view  that 
a  true  conception  of  modesty  does  not  bind  woman  to  sexual 
passivity;  but  that  amative  advances  to  men,  if  only  they  are 
inspired  and  controlled  by  a  pure  and  legitimate  motive — the 
desire  for  marriage — fall  within  the  sphere  of  women's  just 
rights.  The  ancient  and  natural  view,  that  a  married  woman  is 
more  bound  to  modesty,  to  the  concealment  of  erotic  passion, 
than  an  unmarried  one,  is  better  than  the  opposite  notion 
largely  accepted  in  educated  circles  at  the  present  time,  that  a 
matron  in  society — e.g.,  in  a  ballroom — may  be  more  free  with 
the  men  than  her  full-grown,  but  unmarried  daughter. 


"■-Ruth  3:7H. 


238  MODESTY. 

In  a  paper  on  The  Modesty  of  Englishwomen,  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century  and  After,  No.  290,  p.  596,  Mrs.  Mahood 
makes  the  following  reflections  on  the  standard  of  modesty 
required  of  English  girls  by  modern  custom  in  regard  to  their 
inclinations  to  marriage: — 

"A  man  may  remark  on  his  intention  to  marry  at  some 
indefinite  future  time,  when  prudence  or  other  considerations 
may  make  it  possible  or  advisable,  without  having  as  a  rule  to 
run  the  gauntlet  of  a  chorus  of  impertinent  and  stupid  would- 
be  witty  remarks.  But  should  a  girl  be  bold  enough,  or  rather, 
natural  and  simple  enough,  to  say  the  same  thing,  what  would 
be  the  result?  Why,  everyone  knows  that  she  would  be 
promptly  sneered  out  of  countenance.  And  why?  Is  it  im- 
modest for  a  woman  to  express  a  determination  to  enter  into  a 
state  which  we  are  being  continually  reminded  is  a  natural  and 
honorable  state,  while  it  is  natural  and  proper  for  a  man  to  do 
so?" 

Mrs.  Mahood  justly  implies  that  there  is  a  great  element 
of  unfairness  and  harshness  toward  women  in  such  a  state  of 
public  opinion ;  which  is  probably  the  outcome,  not  merely,  as 
she  thinks,  of  the  disproportion  existing  in  England  between 
the  numbers  of  marriageable  men  and  of  marriageable  women, 
but  also  of  the  growth  in  past  generations,  as  well  as  in  the 
present,  of  false  notions  of  what  female  modesty  ought  to  be, 
notions  which,  as  is  shown  in  the  present  chapter,  suffer  by 
comparison  with  the  primitive  natural  idea. 

Of  course  the  suggestion  that  woman's  part  in  the  initial 
stages  of  a  love  affair  is  not  one  of  entire  passivity  varies 
greatly  in  its  application.  Some  may  say  that  it  is  a  needless 
suggestion ;  and  that  many  girls  might  make  it  the  basis  of  a 
disastrous  eagerness  for  marriage.  Against  such  a  misapplica- 
tion we  have  already  guarded  in  this  chapter;  but  it  must  be 
observed  that  just  as  excess  of  sexual  liberty  has  wrought 
havoc  in  the  lives  of  some  women,  so  the  prudish  refusal  of 
even  a  certain  degree  of  such  liberty  has  done  grievous  wrong 


MODESTY.  239 

to  others.  Many  a  woman  has  doubtless  suffered  severely  from 
sexual  isolation,  who  might  have  been  happily  and  healthily 
married,  had  it  not  been  for  difficulties  placed  in  her  way  by 
overstrained  social  exclusiveness,  or  by  erroneous  notions  of 
the  obligation  of  modesty. 

A  rational  system  of  sexual  ethics  will  not  contain  any 
definite  rules  as  to  the  methods  by  which  women  in  civilized 
communities  may  legitimately  discover  the  erotic  longing  with 
a  view  to  its  just  satisfaction  in  matrimony.  Many  women 
find  in  a  natural,  though  more  or  less  conscious,  use  of  feminine 
charms  and  grace  all  that  is  required  by  the  conditions  of  their 
sexual  life ;  but,  as  already  hinted,  an  unusual  degree  of  erotic 
passion,  involving  an  intolerable  strain,  may  make  a  special 
boldness  in  the  display  of  emotion  necessary  even  for  a  woman. 

Perhaps  the  extremest  methods  by  which  women,  in  the 
artificial  life  of  modern  civiHzation,  notify  their  desire  for  mar- 
riage, are  exemplified  in  matrimonial  agencies  and  advertise- 
ment columns.  The  conditions  of  such  advertising  are  still  so 
irregular  that  only  severe  pressure  of  circumstances  could 
justify  the  risks  which  would  be  entailed  by  taking  this  step. 
Some  years  ago  The  Guardian,  commenting  on  a  most  painful 
case  in  the  English  law  courts,  remarked  that  the  publication 
of  matrimonial  advertisements  ought  to  be  made  a  penal  of- 
fense. "They  are  in  some  cases  a  means  of  obtaining  money 
fraudulently  from  silly  dupes ;  in  other  cases  they  are  simply 
a  trap  employed  by  the  pander  and  the  procuress." 

Matrimonial  advertising  should  at  any  rate  be  placed  under 
stringent  regulations.  Newspapers  should  be  compelled  to  take 
out  a  special  license  for  the  insertion  of  such  advertisements, 
of  which  a  register  might  be  kept ;  and  no  one  should  be 
allowed  to  insert  such  an  advertisement  without  being  able  to 
exhibit  a  certificate  of  character  from  some  responsible  and 
trustworthy  person  in  the  locality.  The  object  for  which  this 
certificate  was  desired  need  not  necessarily  be  disclosed. 
Under  no  circumstances  should  men  be  allowed  to  insert  such 
advertisements. 


240  MODESTY. 

It  might  be  possible  to  regulate  matrimonial  advertising, 
and  to  free  the  system  from  the  worst  dangers  now  inherent  in 
it;  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that  such  advertising,  and  every 
other  extreme  method  of  extending,  on  the  woman's  side,  her 
quest  of  a  partner,  could  only  be  justified  morally  by  extraor- 
dinary pressure.  That  such  pressure  may  exist  in  isolated 
cases,  it  seems  impossible  to  deny.  Doubtless,  at  any  rate — - 
could  the  dry  columns  of  print  unfold  the  real  life-story — it 
would  be  seen  that  some  women  have  had  recourse  to  such 
expedients  only  after  and  owing  to  an  exhausting  conflict  with 
the  sexual  impulse. i" 

Vastly  more  important,  however,  than  any  attempt  to  de- 
fine the  manner  and  methods  by  which  the  sexual  longing  is 
permitted  to  discover  itself,  in  woman  or  in  man,  is  the  empha- 
sis which  must  ever  be  placed  upon  the  necessity  of  trusting 
that  Divine  Providence  which  promises,  to  patient  faith,  sup- 
port and  guidance  in  every  kind  of  conflict  and  perplexity ;  and 
the  due  fulfillment  of  all  human  needs,  sexual  needs  as  well 
as  any  other. 

Where  there  is  a  numerical  disproportion  of  the  sexes,  as 
in  some  colonial  settlements,  attempts  to  adjust  the  proportion 
and  to  give  the  normal  facilities  for  marriage  engage  the  atten- 
tion of  governments.  Wholesale  importations  of  women  have 
been  sometimes  talked  of ;  but  such  crude  means  obviously  do 
not  promise  well.  It  does  not  follow  that  a  policy  of  numerical 
readjustment  is  inadmissible  in  se.  It  is  possible  to  encourage 
female  immigration,  under  proper  safeguards,  by  the  establish- 
ing of  a  special  bureau,  some  of  whose  officials  should  them- 
selves be  able  and  conscientious  women.  The  immediate  object 
of  such  immigration  should  be  female  labor;  but  it  would 
indirectly  make  marriage  easier  of  access.  Indeed,  one  is  in- 
clined to  go  a  step  farther.  It  is  in  such  circumstances  as  are 
here  outlined,  if  anywhere,  that  the  matrimonial  agency  has  a 
legitimate  place.    If  a  colonist  living  in  a  wild  part,  with  almost 


1'  Cp.  Forel,  op.  cit.,  p.  414  (ed.  10,  482). 


MODESTY.  241 

no  opportunities  of  meeting  women — as  is  not  infrequently  the 
case — desires  a  wife,  it  is  difficult  to  see  anything  immoral  or 
immodest  in  his  making  private  application  to  the  government 
agency  of  female  immigration,  managed  by  women  of  higl; 
character.  Thus  would  arise  at  least  some  possibility  of  the 
fulfillment  of  his  need. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  what  proportion  of  cases 
have  turned  out  well  in  experiments  actually  undertaken  in 
regard  to  the  provision  of  spouses.  But  the  history  of  matri- 
monial agencies  on  its  honorable  side — if  it  has  one — has  yet  to 
be  written. IS 


IS  Matrimonial  advertising  appears  in  a  not  unfavorable  aspect  in 
a  short  article  by  Mary  Winton  in  the  Grand  Magazine  for  July,  1905, 
where  some  personal  experiences  are  narrated,  and  a  scheme,  quite  un- 
objectionable from  a  moral  point  of  view,  for  the  establishment  of 
matrimonial  bureaus,  is  briefly  outlined.  More  recently,  the  subject 
has  been  handled  by  Dr.  Loewenfeld  in  Die  Neue  Generation,  Jahrg 
9.  Heft  11,  in  a  paper  entitled  Ueber  ehrenamtliche  Vermittlung  in 
Eheangelegenheiten.  His  remarks  indorse  what  has  been  said  in  this 
chapter  about  the  rightfulness  of  a  woman's  desire  for  marriage.  He 
thinks  that  the  principle  of  the  social  facilitation  of  marriage  may  be 
systematically  applied ;  and  is  not  deterred  by  the  incidental  abuses  of 
matrimonial  agency  work,  from  holding  this  opinion.  His  suggestion 
is  that  since  the  pressure  of  other  business  would  not  allow  the  State 
to  establish  matrimonial  agencies,  unions  of  social  science  might  under- 
take it  as  a  practical  development  of  their  work.  Such  organizations 
would  delegate  the  duty  of  encouraging  desirable  marriages — what 
Loewenfeld  calls  the  Vermittlungstatigkeit — to  selected,  specially  quali- 
fied persons,  who,  from  their  disinterested  standpoint  and  with  their 
expert  psychological  and  eugenic  knowledge,  would  fulfill  the  function 
in  question  better  and  more  responsibly  than  most  amateur  matchmakers. 
The  social  recognition  of  such  organizations  would  render  it  easier  to 
stamp  out  objectionable  matrimonial  agencies. 

The  future  may  see  some  such  scheme  worked  out  in  detail  and 
under  legal  regulation.  H  this  were  successfully  done  it  would  well 
accord  with  the  principle  laid  down  on  a  previous  page,  that  the  modern 
sexual  moralist  must  contrive  not  only  to  suppress  vice,  but  to  supply 
legitimate  needs  by  making  marriage  more  readily  and  generally  acces- 
sible. 


16 


CHAPTER  XVI. 
Divorce. 

Statement  of  the  Question — Christian  Ideal  of  Marriage — Uncer- 
tainty of  Ecclesiastical  Opinion  on  Divorce — Christ  on  Divorce — St. 
Paul— Attitude  of  State— Duty  of  Church  in  the  Matter. 

In  modern  consideration  of  divorce,  one  of  the  most  diffi- 
cult, as  it  is  one  of  the  most  momentous,  of  sex  problems,  there 
stands  out  in  strong  relief,  amid  much  confusion  of  mind,  a 
sincere  desire  on  the  part  of  thinking  Christians  to  arrive  at  a 
view  of  divorce  which  shall  meet  certain  extreme  needs  arising 
in  circumstances  of  exceptional  stress,  without  weakening  the 
highest  moral  obligations  bound  up  with  Christianity. 

It  is  indeed  with  an  increased  sense  of  responsibility  that 
I  touch  this  part  of  my  subject;  for,  as  Rade  observes,  a  per- 
son's view  of  divorce  affords  a  test  for  the  soundness  of  his 
ethical  teaching  in  general,  on  the  sex  life.i 

Whether  the  ideal  of  the  indissolubility  of  marriage  was 
actually  realized  and  divorce  was  unknown  among  primeval 
men,  does  not  appear  provable.  A  few  known  peoples  on  the 
lowest  plane  of  culture  do  not  allow  divorce;  and  an  inference 
of  some  value  may  be  drawn  from  the  fact  that  some  birds,  and 
possibly  the  anthropomorphous  apes,  appear  to  pair  for  life. 
But  the  early  history  of  divorce  is  exceedingly  obscure. ^ 

It  is  frequently  urged  that  the  only  bond  which  makes  a 
marriage  contract  valid,  and  the  only  guarantee  of  its  stability, 
is  love ;  and  by  an  imperfect  estimate  of  love,  it  is  argued  that 
when  the  sentiment  of  mutual  love  ceases  to  exist,  a  marriage 


1  Rade,  Die  Stellung  des  Christenthums  zum  Geschlechtsleben,  p. 
81. 

-  Howard,   op.    cit.,  vol.   i,   pp.   247ff. ;   Westermarck,    op.   cit.,  pp. 
517,  521ff. ;  Skeat  and  Blagden,  Pagan  Races  of  the  Malay  Peninsula, 
vol.  ii,  p.  66. 
(242) 


DIVORCE.  243 

contract  between  two  parties,  though  originally  entered  upon 
under  the  shadow  of  the  most  solemn  religious  sanctions,  need 
no  longer  be  observed.  But  Christian  society  sees  that  this 
argument  rests  upon  a  fundamental  misconception.  Its  own 
estimate  of  love  is  infinitely  higher  than  one  which  makes  it 
out  to  be  no  more  than  a  sentiment.  Love  is  an  incentive  to 
duty  which  stimulates  the  will,  even  when  sentiment  has  lost 
much  of  its  power  over  the  emotions  and  affections.  Thus 
love  would  still  urge  one  party  to  a  marriage  to  be  true  to  the 
other  by  an  elTort  of  will,  even  though  circumstances  might 
have  arisen  which  would  inevitably  cause  a  diminution  of  sen- 
timental affection.  Ideally,  this  incentive  to  duty  arising  from 
the  action  of  love  on  the  will-power  is  too  strong  to  be  nulli- 
fied by  any  of  the  adverse  circumstances  of  this  life.  Not 
incompatibility  of  tastes  or  ill-temper,  not  imprisonment  or  in- 
sanity or  adultery  itself,  however  much  they  may  depress  the 
sentiments  which  spontaneously  arise  when  conjugal  love  flour- 
ishes amid  normal  conditions,  can  avail  to  destroy  the  convic- 
tion that  fidelity,  maintained  without  regard  to  the  self-sacri- 
fice involved,  will  ultimately  meet  its  reward.  The  grandeur 
of  some  of  the  noblest  lives  which  have  ever  graced  humanity 
has  sprung  from  the  realization  of  this  ideal  of  conjugal  love, 
in  circumstances  of  exceptional  pain  and  difficulty. 

The  view  is  taken  by  some  writers,  e.g.,  Edersheim,  Life 
and  Times,  and  Newman  Smyth,  in  Christian  Ethics,  that  by 
the  very  fact  of  adultery  the  marriage-bond  is  broken.  The 
ethical  tendency  of  this  proposition  is  doubtful,  and  there  are 
difficulties  of  reasoning  in  its  elucidation.  It  is,  as  has  often 
been  pointed  out,  capable  of  a  reductio  ad  absurdwm  from  the 
facts  of  human  experience.  A  forgiven  adultery  is  doubtless, 
in  some  cases,  one  of  the  secrets  of  married  life;  nor  does  this 
act  of  forgiveness  render  necessary  the  renewal  of  the  marriage 
compact,-"  as  it  must  logically  do  according  to  the  theory  of  dis- 


-^  Cp.  Bp.  Andrewes,  Minor  Works  (Library  Anglo-Ca  holic  Theol., 
p.  106),  quoted  in  Dibdin  and  Healey,  English  Church  Law  and  Divorce, 
p.  44. 


244  DIVORCE. 

solution  by  adultery.  Adultery  cannot,  according  to  the  theory 
of  conjugal  love  developed  in  the  Bible,  be  regarded  as  a  neces- 
sarily unpardonable  sin  against  the  remaining  partner.  Such 
moral  teaching  as  is  conveyed  in  a  passage  like  the  vv^onderful 
allegory  in  Ezek.  16,  where  Jahweh  suffers  the  conjugal  rela- 
tion to, subsist  between  Himself  and  Israel,  at  the  end  of  her 
long  career  of  reckless  licentiousness,  is  in  itself  sufficient  to 
prove  that  conjugal  love  cannot  be  limited  in  its  possibilities 
of  long-suffering,  as  it  is  under  the  above-mentioned  hypothesis. 
The  allegory  would  lose  much  of  the  force  which  it  now  pos- 
sesses, if  the  state  of  things  which  it  describes  were  not  in  some 
degree  possible  in  actual  life.  Moreover,  as  the  Anglican  mar- 
riage service  states,  there  are  other  departments  of  conjugal  life 
besides  the  primarily  sexual.  Why  then  should  a  sin  in  this 
latter  department  necessarily  and  automatically  dissolve  mar- 
riage any  more  than  one  in  another?  It  seems  preferable  to 
state  the  matter  thus.  The  occurrence  of  an  adultery  gives  to 
the  remaining  partner  the  option  of  thereafter  giving  up  his 
adhesion  to  the  marriage  bond  which  he  formerly  acknowl- 
edged. But  according  to  the  Christian  ideal  of  matrimony  one 
is  not  to  avail  one's  self  of  this  possibility  of  dissolving  a  mar- 
riage, as  long  as  the  adulterous  partner  may  repent  of  and 
renounce  the  sin. 

That  part  of  the  Christian  Church  which  inculcates  the 
strictest  doctrine  in  accordance  with  this  ideal,  is  unquestion- 
ably rendering  a  vast  service  to  society.  By  making  the  ideal 
of  human  marriage  stand  out  in  strong  relief,  it  sternly  empha- 
sizes the  call  to  self-sacrifice.  It  prevents  the  general  concep- 
tion of  marriage  from  degenerating  into  one  which  would  ener- 
vate character  and  moral  strength.  It  lifts  conjugal  love  from 
the  region  of  animality  into  a  sphere  where  it  finds  the  highest 
development. 

All  potential  causes  of  divorce  are  regarded  from  the  ideal 
standpoint  of  the  Christian  marriage  vow  as  removable,  or  at 
least  as  capable  of  being  rendered  ineffective  by  moral  or  other 
means ;  and  many  even  of  the  most  unpromising  causes  f  re- 


DIVORCE.  245 

quently  prove  to  be  actually  curable  and  removable.  Conse- 
quently, divorce  for  any  cause  must  ever  be  below  the  Christian 
ideal  of  marriage. 

None  the  less,  the  difference  of  opinion  in  the  Church  re- 
specting the  lawfulness  of  divorce  in  certain  circumstances,^ 
and  the  obscurity  of  the  Bible  teaching  upon  it,  taken  as  a 
whole,  show  that  inevitable  failures  to  reach  the  ideal  are  con- 
templated. Such  at  any  rate  seems  to  be  the  possible  inference 
from  the  difficult  passage,  St.  Matt.  19:  11.^ 

St.  Paul,  again,  speaking  of  divorce  in  I  Cor.  7,  causes  the 
ideal  law  of  marriage  to  stand  out  in  strong  relief  before  the 
minds  of  those  who  have  been  brought  together  in  wedlock 
under  the  shadow  of  the  Christian  Covenant.  But,  it  may  fairly 
be  asked,  is  his  language  such  as  to  allow  us  to  infer  that  he 
desiderates  a  rigidly  uniform  enforcement  of  this  ideal?  He 
seems  to  be  thinking  of  cases  in  which,  after  some  grave 
difticulty  has  arisen  between  Christian  man  and  wife,  a  return 
to  the  full  sweetness  of  the  conjugal  relation  is  possible.  In 
regard  to  cases  in  which  this  return  is  not  possible,  e.g.,  from 
some  physical  cause,  would  he  have  uniformly  given  the  same 
judgment?  Would  a  man  whose  attitude  upon  the  indissolu- 
bility of  marriage  was  clearly  and  perfectly  defined,  have  tol- 
erated even  such  an  idea  as  that  of  a  Christian  husband  whose 
pagan  wife  left  him,  being  allowed  to  regard  the  marriage  con- 
tract as  thereby  annulled? 

It  is  true,  at  the  same  time,  that  even  if  the  above  infer- 
ence be  allowed,  failures  to  reach  the  marriage  ideal  could  only 
be  regarded  as  venial,  according  to  a  just  view  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament teaching,  owing  to  intolerable  stress  of  circumstances. 

An  analogy  will  help  us  to  understand  the  progress  of 
modern  thought  on  divorce,  in  its  relation  to  Biblical  teaching. 
In  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  debated  whether  the  putting  out  of 

3  Such  difference  of  opinion  has  existed  from  the  earliest  period. 
See  Additional  Note  G  on  the  Patristic  and  Medieval  Attitude  to 
Divorce. 

•*  Sec  farther,  note  on  p.  366f. 


246  DIVORCE. 

capital  to  interest  was  legitimate ;  and  a  large  body  of  opinion 
decided  on  the  strength  of  a  prima  facie  interpretation  of  St. 
Luke  6 :  35,  taken  in  isolation,  that  it  was  not.  Uhlhorn  ob- 
serves that  the  social  factor  capital,  now  so  mighty,  found  no 
place  in  the  social  life  of  medieval  Europe.^  Social  evolution 
would  accordingly  have  been  checked ;  our  modern  economic 
system  would  never  have  come  into  being,  had  not  a  few  think- 
ers found  courage  to  break  with  the  unscientific  literalism  that 
thus  dominated  Biblical  interpretation.  There  are,  indeed, 
doubtless  many  particular  developments  of  an  antichristian 
tendency  in  the  modern  economic  system ;  but  will  any  thinking 
Christian  venture  to  condemn  it  as  a  whole? 

The  same  method  of  isolating  texts  of  Scripture  and  mak- 
ing them  decisive  of  policies,  retarded  geographical  explora- 
tion,*^ and  was  also  an  important  factor  in  bringing  about  his- 
tory's most  terrible  episode,  the  Witchmania  of  the  Middle 
Ages.''' 

Now,  just  as  in  the  Middle  Ages  many  people  used  the 
Lucan  text  above  referred  to,  in  order  to  justify  their  inaction, 
their  refusal  to  undertake  the  onerous  task  of  thinking  out 
economic  problems,  so  many  nowadays,  in  their  despair  of 
making  progress  in  the  solution  of  sexual  and  matrimonial 
problems,  search  the  Bible  for  isolated  pronouncements  seeming 
to  support  their  negative  view.  E.g.,  Bishop  Gore,  in  his  book 
on  Divorce,  endeavors  to  reduce  the  series  of  Biblical  counsels 
on  divorce  to  a  categorical  prohibition  of  it,  with  the  implica- 
tion that  such  prohibition  can  and  ought  to  be  embodied  in 
secular  legislation.  His  general  position  suggests  the  idea  that, 
in  St.  Matthew's  Gospel,  the  record  of  events  is  more  primitive 
and  historically  trustworthy  than  that  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus.* 


5  Uhlhorn,  Die  christliche  Liebestatigkeit,  ed.  1895,  p.  317. 

6  Houston  Chamberlain,  The  Foundations  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury, vol.  ii,  pp.  280ff. 

■7  The  relevant  text  is  Ex.  22 :  18. 
8  Gore,  Divorce,  pp.  17ff. 


DIVORCE.  247 

The  contrary  is  more  likely  to  be  the  real  state  of  the  case  ;^ 
though  no  doubt  the  originality  of  the  sayings  has  also  been 
interfered  with.^^ 

In  sum,  Biblical  science  has  now  put  it  beyond  question 
that  the  ideal  of  indissolubility  is  the  determining  factor  in  the 
Christian  ethic  of  marriage;  but  it  has  also  shown  with  equal 
conclusiveness  that  the  ideal  is  not  realizable  by  legislative  co- 
ercion; and  that  the  right  of  applying  matured  moral  judgment 
to  the  exigencies  of  individual  cases  inheres  in  the  principles  of 
the  Gospel,  and  was  in  fact  exercised  in  primitive  Christian- 
ity.^^  This  view  is  coming  into  more  and  more  general 
acceptance. 12 

The  foregoing  considerations  suggest  that  the  thinker's  atti- 
tude to  divorce  may,  and  indeed  must,  vary  with  the  standpoint 
from  which  he  views  it.  The  simplest  and  best  attitude  for  the 
Church  on  the  question  is  the  one  actually  taken  up  by  the  High 
Church  party  in  the  Anglican  Church,  viz.,  to  maintain  the  ideal 
of  marriage  as  indissoluble,  as  it  is  set  forth  in  the  canon  law 
and  formularies  of  that  Church. !•"  Individual  departures  from 
the  highest  standard  of  marriage,  though  they  may  conceivably 
be  rendered  inevitable  by  force  of  circumstances,  and  though 
they  may  not  be  without  some  obscure  sanction,  as  is  suggested 
above,  in  the  general  ethical  scheme  of  Christianity,  could  not 
be  regarded  indifferently  by  the  Church. 

It  may  be  said  with  confidence  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
clergy  to  refuse  to  remarry  persons  who  have  been  partners  in 
a  former  marriage  which,  for  any  reason  whatever,  has  been 
dissolved. 


9  Moffatt,  Historical  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament,  p.  248 ; 
Gardner,  The  Religious  Experience  of  St.  Paul,  pp.  2f. 
i^J.  Weiss's  commentary  on  the  Synoptics,  passim. 

11  Cp.  J.  Weiss,  in  Die  Schriften  des  N.  T.,  vol.  i,  pp.  60,  274. 

12  There  is,  e.g.,  an  article  by  G.  W.  Wade,  D.D.,  in  The  Modern 
Churchman,  vol.  ii,  in  which  the  position  of  this  chapter  is  reached 
independently. 

13  See  The  Guardian,  quoted  in  Luckock,  History  of  Marriage, 
p.  238. 


248  DIVORCE. 

But  a  decided  attitude  as  to  the  special  duty  of  the  Church 
is  compatible,  among  Anglicans,  with  some  extension  of  view 
on  the  broad  question  of  the  lawfulness  of  divorce.  It  is  not 
clear  that  the  position  of  the  Church  in  the  matter  is  necessarily 
to  be  taken  up  by  the  State.  If  the  Church,  as  an  exponent  of 
the  highest  morality  known  to  mankind,  must  with  its  utmost 
efforts  maintain  the  ideal  of  marriage,  the  State  must  provide 
for  the  inevitable  failures  of  individuals  here  and  there  to 
reach  that  ideal.  If  the  Church  is  to  guard  the  general  rule, 
the  State  must  consider  the  exceptions.  Conceivably  there  may 
be  cases  in  which  when  one  married  partner  persistently  and 
irremediably  fails  to  perform  conjugal  duties,  the  other,  after 
full  experience  and  sincerest  effort,  finds  the  strain  thus  in- 
duced upon  mind,  nerves,  and  health  positively  unendurable. 
From  some  complicating  causes,  constitutional  defects,  physical 
or  moral  weakness,  or  whatever  they  may  be,  his  strength  proves 
itself  unequal  to  the  burden  which  the  severity  of  the  Christian 
marriage  commandment,  in  its  ideal  form,  imposes.  He  fairly 
proves  that  it  is  not  given  him  to  "receive  the  saying."  Would 
it  be  inconsistent  with  the  view  of  divorce  put  forward  in  the 
New  Testament,  that  view  being  taken  in  its  utmost  vague 
breadth  as  found  in  St.  Matthew  19,  to  allow  that  in  extreme 
cases  where  human  love,  after  full  trial,  has  proved  unequal 
to  an  exceptional  strain,  remarriage  should  take  place — after 
the  lapse  of  a  considerable  specified  timei'* — not  under  the 
sanction  of  the  Church,  but  under  that  of  the  State? 


1*  This  point  is  of  great  importance,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the 
attitude  of  the  State  on  moral  questions  helps  greatly  in  educating  the 
moral  sense  of  the  community.  Here  we  perceive  one  of  the  ways  in 
which,  as  Wundt  observes  (Ethics,  vol.  iii,  p.  136,  E.  tr.),  law  can  serve 
indirectly  moral  ends  which  it  cannot  reach  directly.  The  obtaining  of 
a  divorce  is  conditioned  in  our  laws  something  in  the  manner  indicated, 
time  having  to  elapse  between  the  decree  nisi  and  the  decree  absolute. 
A  writer  in  The  Guardian,  reviewing  a  recent  anonymous  work  on 
divorce,  warns  the  Christian  Church  against  allowing  the  divorce  law 
of  England  to  be  made  frankly  secular.  If  by  the  phrase  "frankly 
secular"   is   implied   an  attitude  of   avowed  hostility  to   the   Christian 


DIVORCE.  249 

ideal  of  marriage,  the  present  writer  would  find  this  warning  accept- 
able. But  there  is  an  alternative  position,  the  one  taken  up  in  this 
chapter,  i.e.,  that  the  State  may  frame  its  marriage  laws  so  as  to  approxi- 
mate to  and  as  far  as  possible  assist  the  realization  of  the  Christian 
ideal  of  marriage,  yet  not  so  as  to  lend  its  support  to  the  rigid  and 
indiscriminate  enforcing  of  that  ideal  upon  society.  It  is  at  least  patent 
that  a  law  confining  facilities  for  remarriage  after  divorce  within  very 
narrow  limits,  signally  fails  in  practice  to  accomplish  its  purpose  of 
penalizing  the  non-fulfillment  of  matrimonial  obligations,  and  of  pre- 
venting among  the  mass  of  the  people  a  species  of  divorce  without  the 
assistance  of  the  court — to  borrow  Mr.  Booth's  phrase;  and  an  ensuing 
state  of  cohabitation  resembling  and  approximating  to  the  married 
estate.     (See  C.  Booth,  Life  and  LaboF,  etc.,  final  vol.,  p.  42.) 

The  practical  working  out  of  this  legal  theory — as  of  legal  theo- 
ries in  general — is  indeed  far  from  perfect?  A  writer  in  II  Rogo,  ann. 
X,  No.  1,  p.  6,  illustrates  the  fact  from  the  experience  of  France : 
"The  law  of  Apr.  21,  1886  (Cod.  civ.  246)  advised  the  judge  to  impose 
a  short  delay  before  decreeing  divorce;  but  recourse  has  been  rarely 
had  to  this  wise  provision.  The  courts  seem  persuaded  that,  from 
the  moment  when  disagreement  sets  in,  it  is  better  to  put  an  end  to  it 
quickly  by  the  divorce  applied  for,  and  this  view  has  come  so  much  into 
vogue  that  an  experienced  magistrate,  Morizot-Thibault,  observes  that 
the  courts,  when  the  case  has  to  do  with  persons  suing  i)i  forma  pau- 
peris, do  not  generally  require  further  proofs  than  those  oi  the  simple 
inquiry  made  by  the  commission  which  granted  leave  to  sue.  Thus 
two  hundred  divorces  were  granted  at  one  sitting." 

However,  in  reality,  defects  in  the  working  of  a  law  by  no  means 
prove  that  its  theory  is  unsound.  Many  beneficial  laws,  even  after  the 
efiforts  of  far-seeing  legislators  have  brought  them  into  being,  are 
hindered  in  their  operation  by  the  lack  of  a  correspondingly  educated 
public  feeling.  It  is  only  when  a  law  has  had  a  long  history  behind  it, 
that  we  can  venture  to  speak  of  its  strong  hand,  or  of  the  sureness  of 
its  operation.  What  Dr.  C.  A.  Mercier  observes  in  regard  to  criminal 
(Mercier,  Criminal  Responsibility,  pp.  14ff.)  holds  good  for  civil  law. 
It  may  be  wise,  it  may  be  grounded  on  the  best  theory  discoverable ; 
yet  for  a  long  time  it  may  be  weak,  and  largely  fail  of  fulfilling  its 
main  purpose.  The  position  that  the  secular  law  should  only  attempt 
to  discourage  and  delay,  not  to  prohibit  divorce,  is  not  shaken  by  such 
adverse  considerations  as  those  just  mentioned.  That  it  is  the  function 
of  secular  law  to  delay  divorce  seems  to  me  indubitable;  and  I  cannot 
understand  a  serious  student  of  divorce  like  S.  B.  Kitchin  permitting 
himself  to  sneer  at  the  delays  imposed  and  reconciliations  attempted 
by  the  secular  courts.     (Kitchin,  A  History  of  Divorce,  pp.  157ff.). 


250  DIVORCE. 

No  compulsion  is  to  be  placed  on  the  clergy,  on  this  theory, 
in  respect  of  either  themselves  celebrating  such  remarriages,  or 
lending  their  churches  for  that  purpose.  For  the  partners  to 
be  obliged  to  resort  to  the  civil  registrar's  court,  in  such  a  case, 
and  to  be  deprived  of  celebrating  the  marriage  under  the  sanc- 
tion of  a  venerable  Christian  ceremony,  would  in  some  measure 
safeguard  society — at  any  rate,  the  society  of  the  members  of 
any  Church  which  takes  the  highest  view  of  the  responsible 
nature  of  the  marriage  contract — against  looking  with  reckless 
laxity  upon  individual  failures  to  maintain  the  ideal.  The  un- 
compromising attitude  of  the  Roman  Church  toward  divorce  is 
said  to  have  had  this  effect  in  America,  upon  members  of  its 
own  communion.  15 

The  Church  has,  besides,  the  power  of  excommunication, 
which  might  be  exercised  over  any  member  who  recklessly  and 
without  sufficient  reason  fell  short  of  the  marriage  ideal.  All 
that  is  here  advanced  is  that,  in  extreme  cases,  the  Church 
might  hesitate  to  brand  as  sinful,  by  this  method,  an  action  to 
which  it  could  not,  from  the  ideal  standpoint,  give  an  unquali- 
fied approval. 1*^  It  is  one  thing  to  refuse  to  assist  a  person  to 
fall  short  of  a  moral  ideal ;  another  thing  to  refrain  from  judg- 
ing his  failure  when  it  has  only  occurred  after  much  struggle 
and  effort.  In  view  of  the  passage  in  St.  Matthew  already  dis- 
cussed, the  present  writer  ventures  with  all  reverence  to  doubt 
whether  Our  Lord  Himself,  in  spite  of  the  distinctness  and  se- 
verity with  which  He  promulgated  the  ideal  marriage  law,  was 
prepared  to  see  that  law  applied  with  ruthless  uniformity.  The 
right  of  civil  remarriage  is  what  many  Anglican  clergy  already 
wish  to  see  in  the  case  of  the  innocent  partner  in  a  divorce  for 


15  See  the  York  Report  on  Divorce,  p.  Zl .  The  above  observation 
is  made  for  what  it  may  be  worth.  On  the  other  hand,  Howard  (o/j. 
cit.,  iii,  p.  212)  concludes  from  the  statistics  at  his  disposal  that  "the 
growth  of  divorce  in  recent  years  is  a  remarkable  phenomenon  in 
Catholic  as  well  as  Protestant  lands." 

16  And  let  us  keep  in  mind,  too,  the  consideration  adduced  in 
quotation  from  Foley,  page  441. 


DIVORCE.  251 

adultery;  and  it  is  not  clear,  either  from  a  religious-or  from  a 
utilitarian  standpoint,  that  an  extension  of  the  right  beyond 
this  one  cause  would  be  wholly  without  justification.  It  is  in- 
deed impossible  to  undertake  here  the  detailed  discussion  of 
the  reasons  which  commend  and  the  difficulties — ethical,  legal, 
medical,  and  other — which  surround  particular  directions  of 
such  extension.  It  is  enough  if  we  are  right  in  recognizing  the 
principle  of  extension ;  and  it  should  be  urged  finally  that  what- 
ever applications  of  this  principle  the  State  may  adopt,  oppor- 
tunities of  divorce  should  always  be  heavily  conditioned. 

It  is  of  course  open  to  anyone  to  object  to  the  view  of  di- 
vorce here  adopted,  on  the  ground  that  in  practice  the  majority 
of  persons  affected  would,  without  waiting  to  prove  by  full  trial 
in  their  own  consciences  the  justice  of  the  step,  avail  themselves 
of  the  suggestion  that  declension  from  the  ideal  standard  may 
not  in  all  cases  be  deserving  of  moral  condemnation.  But  it 
may  be  urged  in  reply  that  if  the  principle  here  enunciated  can- 
not be  shown  to  be  inherently  wrong,  the  onus  of  responsibility 
in  the  application  of  it  rests  ultimately  with  individuals  who 
apply  it  to  their  own  cases.  Nothing  in  this  theory  of  divorce 
discourages  the  Christian  Church  from  impressing  upon  mar- 
ried persons  the  religious  and  moral  urgency  of  mutually  en- 
deavoring to  fulfill  their  conjugal  duties  as  ideally  outlined  in 
the  marriage  vow,  even  amid  the  most  adverse  circumstances. 
Rather  the  whole  argument  implies  that  the  Church  must  with 
the  most  vigorous  efforts  perform  this  function.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  bring  into  too  great  prominence  the  moral  beauty  and 
glory  of  the  ideal  of  matrimony. 

Are  not  the  claims  of  a  married  consort,  in  some  piteous 
case  of  lifelong  imprisonment  or  hopeless  insanity,  still  full  of 
power?  Does  not  the  woe  of  an  insane  wife,  no  longer  able  to 
sustain  her  part  in  the  marriage  union,  appeal  to  all  that  is 
tenderest  and  noblest  in  a  husband's  heart?  Should  not  the 
consort  who  is  not  directly  smitten  by  calamity  still  cling  with 
every  possible  effort  to  the  other  whom  calamity  has  overtaken  ? 
Such  considerations  may  and  ought  to  be  dwelt  upon  with  the 


252  DIVORCE. 

deepest  earnestness  and  the  utmost  persistence  and  power  in 
the  sphere  of  moral  suasion. i"  And  in  the  case  of  people 
whose  conduct  gives  reasonable  evidence  that  they  are  refusing 
to  make  any  response  to  this  teaching,  and  unscrupulously  per- 
verting the  just  theory  of  divorce  to  selfish  and  immoral  ends, 
the  Church  might  initiate,  by  way  of  public  protest,  the  process 
alluded  to  above;  or  if  the  state  of  the  case  was  not  so  clearly 
defined  as  to  allow  of  excommunication,  the  blame  in  the 
matter,  if  blame  there  be,  lies  at  the  door,  not  of  the  clergy  or 
the  corporate  Church,  but  of  the  persons  directly  concerned. 

It  is  objected  by  the  Minority  Report  of  the  Royal  Com- 
mission on  Divorce  and  Matrimonial  Causes,  which  sat  in 
England  from  1909  onward,  that  the  legislative  developments 
recommended  by  the  Majority  Report  are  based  on  a  principle 
which  abrogates  that  of  monogamous  lifelong  union. i^  But  ia 
truth  both  reports  should  be  read  in  connection  with  the  ideal 
of  indissolubility.  The  real  chief  difference  between  the 
Majority  and  Minority  Reports  is  that  the  latter  leans,  far 
more  decidedly  than  the  former,  to  the  principle  of  coercion. 
Whether  this  course  is  practically  and  provisionally  the  wiser, 
— as  may  with  considerable  reason  be  maintained, — it  is  as- 
suredly not  ideally  right.  In  the  long  run,  it  cannot  be  that  the 
Christian  Church  will  continue  to  rely  on  the  secular  arm  to 
translate  its  principles  into  social  practice  and  realize  its  ideals. 

Moral  and  spiritual  principles  call  for  the  exertion  of 
moral  and  spiritual  force.  When  Church  organizations  appeal 
to  the  legislature  to  enforce  their  ethical  theories,  they  are  in 
fact  requesting  other  agencies — and  those  incompetent  for  the 
task — to  do  their  work  in  place  of  them.  The  Church  should 
rather  step  forward,  as  an  essentially  moral  and  spiritual 
agency,  to  the  task  of  solving  this  problem.  It  should  employ 
the  methods  proper  to  it,  the  forces  which  belong  to  its  heri- 
tage and  for  the  use  of  which  it  is  responsible.     So  far  as  I 


1'''  In  support  of  such  considerations  I  may  refer  to  the  remarks 
of  Eulenburg  (Senator  and  Kaminer,  op.  cit.,  vol.  ii,  pp.  915ff.,  935). 
IS  Minority  Report,  pp.  184ff. 


DIVORCE.  253 

know,  among  all  the  particular  organized  activities  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  sympathetic  and  expert  handling  of  matrimonial 
troubles  has  never  found  a  place ;  there  is  not,  and  there  never 
has  been,  any  Mission  of  Concord  to  which  married  people  can 
look  for  counsel,  help,  prayer,  and  the  special  endeavor  to  heal 
their  wounded  life  in  common. is''  May  it  be  that  a  chosen  and 
gifted  soul  will  at  some  time  be  moved  to  found  and  organize 
such  a  mission ;  and  married  people  in  trouble  and  discord  will 
then  feel  that  though  they  can  indeed  fall  back  on  the  divorce 
courts  to  end  their  conjugal  life,  yet  the  moral  obligation  of 
trying  to  avoid  that  step  lies  upon  them ;  and  in  the  spiritual 
agency  which  offers  to  come  to  their  aid,  they  will  find  not  only 
emphasis  laid  upon  that  moral  obligation,  but  help  given  in  the 
performance  of  it. 

The  worst  feature  in  the  present  social  handling  of 
matrimonial  problems,  and  sexual  problems  in  general,  is  the 
smallness  of  the  element  of  intelligent  sympathy.  The  increase 
of  that  element  would  go  far  to  reduce  the  divorce  rate.  But 
in  the  mean  time  the  principle  of  coercion  cannot  be  wholly 
abandoned ;  and  particular  emendations  of  the  divorce  law 
have  to  be  looked  at  on  their  merits,  in  reference  to  their  prac- 
ticability and  probable  effect. 

It  is  a  further  question,  and  one  more  difficult  to  answer, 
whether  the  State  can  penalize  evasions  of  the  spirit  of  its  mar- 
riage laws.  To  impose  legal  penalties  on  adulterous  relations, 
except  as  regards  the  woman,  has  always  been  a  doubtful  and 
difficult  task.  It  is  well  known  that  the  punishment  of  the 
adulteress  has  been  often  undertaken,  and  there  is  sufficient 
record  of  acts  of  vengeance  performed  by  the  injured  husband 
or  his  relatives  on  the  adulterer,  such  as  are  referred  to  on 
another  page.  Of  the  same  nature  is  the  legal  provision  by 
which  the  injured  husband  can  claim  damages  against  his 
wife's  paramour.  But  history  has  record  of  another  class  of 
penalties  for  adultery,  based  on  a  different  principle  from  that 
of  the  above,  namely,  that  adultery  is  punishable  by  the  com- 

1^=*  I  understand,  however,  that  Prison  Gate  Missions  incidentally 
do  a  good  deal  of  such  work  among  certain  classes. 


254  •       DIVORCE. 

munity  as  an  injurious  breach  of  moral  order.^^  Howard  illus- 
trates this  principle  from  Roman  legislation,  and  from  the  older 
laws  of  England  and  the  United  States.-*'     It  is  arguable  that 

1''  Israelite  law  prescribed  adultery  as  a  social  offense  punishable 
with  death  (Dt.  22:22ff.;  Lv.  20:10;  Ezek.  16:38,  40;  23:45,  47;  and 
probably  Prov.  5:14).  I  doubt  whether  Professor  Toy  is  right  (see 
Prov.  6:33)  in  suggesting  that  Ben-Sira  does  not  refer  to  the  death 
penalty  in  this  connection.  Death  may  very  well  be  the  form  of  the 
visitation  which  is  to  overtake  the  adulterous  couple  and  the  children 
of  their  union  (Sir.  23:21,  24).  Under  the  Roman  rule  the  Jews 
were  no  longer  allowed  to  inflict  the  death  penalty  (Jno.  18:31), 
though  it  was  still  part  of  their  penal  theory  (Jno.  8:5);  but  it  is 
probable  that  the  rigor  of  the  law  had  been  relaxed  independently  of 
this  circumstance.  St.  Paul  refers  to  adultery  among  the  Jews  in  a 
way  suggestive  of  the  fact  that  their  condemnation  of  it  found  no 
very  severe  social  expression  (Rom.  2:22). 

The  primitive  legislation  contains  no  attempt  to  discriminate  be- 
tween cases  or  to  estimate  motives.  It  voices  the  savage,  unquestion- 
ing desire  to  avenge  a  wrong ;  the  desire  which,  originating  in  the 
anger  of  the  individual,  makes  itself  felt  by  the  whole  community. 
So  far  as  it  expresses  a  conscious  striving  for  holiness  on  the  part 
of  the  community,  a  mental  attitude  reflected  in  the  command  "Thou 
shalt  put  away,  or  burn  away  (Piel  of  ba<=ar)  the  evil  from  the  midst 
of  thee,"  this  is  connected  with  the  notion  that  evil  threatens  to  cling 
with  something  analogous  to  physical  contagion,  not  merely  to  the 
community  but  also  to  its  God ;  and  that  the  inevitable  Divine  repul- 
sion of  evil  may  consequently  be  accompanied  by  an  indiscriminate 
visitation  of  the  community  with  the  Divine  anger.  (Westermarck, 
Origin  and  Development  of  the  Moral  Ideas,  i,  pp.  233ff.)  In  such 
legislation  we  are  far  indeed  from  a  discerning  and  just  judgment  on 
the  sin  of  adultery.  The  kind  of  adultery  contemplated  implies  reck- 
less disregard  of  others"  rights.  The  complex  causes  which  may  in 
practice  diminish  responsibility  for  its  commission,  and  so  lessen  its 
guilt,  are  not  taken  into  account. 

The  general  attitude  of  the  New  Testament  writers  to  adultery 
is  one  of  the  severest  reprobation.  In  itself  it  is  a  sin  which  defiles 
and  excludes  from  communion  with  God  (Mt.  15:19;  I  Cor.  6:9); 
a  sin  which  cries  out  for  God's  judgments  (He.  13:4).  It  is  a 
symbol  of  Godlessness  in  general  (Rev.  2:22),  as  frequently  in  O.  T. 
It  is  included  in  the  general  condemnation  of  rropvela,  sexual  license,  or 
whoredom. 

20  Howard,  op.  cit.,  vol.  ii,  pp.  32.  79,  169ff. 


DIVORCE.  255 

adultery  might  again  be  penalized  by  the  State,  for  the  good 
of  the  community.  It  would  seem  that  the  law,  instead  of 
leaving  to  the  injured  partner,  as  a  supplement  to  divorce  pro- 
ceedings, the  option  of  preferring  a  claim  for  damages  against 
the  invader  of  his  rights,  might  reserve  to  itself  the  power  of 
visiting  the  offense  with  some  punishment  consonant  with 
modern  ideas  of  justice,  as  at  least  an  indication  of  society's 
corporate  disapproval.  For  not  only  is  it  the  general  function 
of  the  State  to  prevent  and  correct  sexual  misdemeanors,  but 
it  belongs  to  it  also  to  punish  the  non-fulfillment  of  contracts 
duly  entered  into.  By  this  means  the  community  would  enter 
its  protest  against  adultery  more  effectively  than  by  a  vague 
and  frequently  impracticable  social  condemnation.  The  law, 
too,  would  take  impartial  account  of  the  special  circumstances 
of  particular  cases.  It  is  true  that  the  question  of  penalizing 
adultery  on  this  wider  principle  is  highly  complicated;  it  is 
true  that  Acts  of  Parliament  are  but  indifferent  moral  instru- 
ments and  limited  in  their  operation ;  and  that  legislative  ex- 
periments hitherto  made  for  the  suppression  of  adultery  have 
had  dubious  success ;  but  it  does  not  seem  established  that  no 
improvement  can  be  effected  in  the  present  policy  of  letting 
each  drama  of  conjugal  misery  in  which  adultery  is  a  factor, 
and  in  which  a  divorce  case  is  one  of  the  acts,  work  itself  out 
thereafter  in  unnoticed  and  almost  haphazard  fashion. 21 

In  the  evolution  of  moral  ideas  it  becomes  increasingly 
clear  that  the  highest  and  proper  purpose  of  all  punishment  or 
punitive  restraint  is  remedial.  If  accordingly  a  social  punish- 
ment is  to  be  inflicted  on  the  adulterer  or  adulteress,  it  should 
rightly  occur  at  some  point  in  the  earlier  stages  of  a  divorce 
process,  and  with  a  view  to  preventing  the  completion  of  that 
process.     To  punish  the  adulterer  after  a   divorce  has  been 


21  Cp.  a  letter  entitled  The  Divorce  Law,  by  J.  C.  Walton  in  The 
Guardian,  May  14,  1914.  The  writer  concludes :  "Has  not  the  time 
arrived  when,  in  a  community  civilized  and  calling  itself  Christian, 
adultery  should  once  again  become  a  crime?  A  move  in  this  direction 
would  do  more  good  than  countless  philosophical  discussions." 


256  DIVORCE. 

granted  would  tend  to  fulfill  another  inherent  but  lower  pur- 
pose of  punishment,  that  of  being  a  general  social  deterrent 
from  adultery.  But  if  imposed  as  a  corollary  to  a  protection 
order  granted  to  a  wife,  or  to  a  decree  nisi,  in  cases  where  an 
adultery  has  been  one  of  the  causes  of  the  application,  some 
measure  of  punishment  for  the  adultery  might  awaken  in  the 
actors  in  it  the  sense  of  sin  which  so  often  seems  completely 
dormant  in  such  cases,  would  impress  the  public  generally  with 
the  guiltiness  of  adultery,  would  prevent  the  institution  of 
divorce  proceedings  as  a  result  of  collusion ;  and,  above  all, 
would  compel  delay  in  the  working  out  of  the  divorce  process, 
and  enforce  an  opportunity  for  reconsideration,  before  the  final 
extremity  of  divorce  absolute. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 
Forbidden  Degrees. 

Origin  of  Sexual  Repulsion — Attitude  of  Christianity  toward 
Incest — Forbidden  Degrees,  History  of — Matriarchate  and  Patriarchate 
— Ideal  Unity  in  Marriage — Marriage  with  a  Deceased  Wife's 'Sister 
Considered. 

The  repulsion  felt  toward  marriage  within  certain  degrees 
both  of  consanguinity  and  of  affinity  has,  according  to  Wester- 
marck,  an  origin  which  may  be  briefly  stated  as  follows :  "Gen- 
erally speaking,  the  feeling  that  two  persons  are  intimately  con- 
nected in  some  way  or  other  .  .  .  may  give  rise  to  the 
notion  that  marriage  or  intercourse  between  them  is  incestu- 
ous." It  is,  of  course,  in  the  first  instance,  in  households  that 
this  intimate  connection  is  found.  Westermarck  in  his  two 
works  on  marriage  and  morals  gives  many  examples  of  the 
application  of  this  principle. 

As  was  to  be  expected,  this  principle  found  a  place  in  the 
scheme  of  Christian  ethics.  The  thoroughness  with  which 
official  Christianity,  from  quite  early  times,  applied  it  is  largely 
explained,  as  Watkins  points  out,i  by  the  anxiety  of  Christians 
to  rebut  the  charges  of  incest  commonly  preferred  against  them 
by  pagans.  This  feeling  stifled  any  impulse  which  the  larger- 
minded  divines  may  have  felt  toward  the  unbiased  examina- 
tion of  the  moral  and  religious  value  of  particular  marriage 
prohibitions.  In  the  history  of  Christianity  the  principle  has 
been  largely  extended,  in  the  light  of  the  ideal  teaching  of 
Jesus  Christ  on  marriage ;  its  .most  remarkable  extension  being 
the  bar  to  marriage  arising  from  cognatio  spiritualis.  The 
necessity  has  arisen  from  time  to  time  in  Christian  history  of 
revising  and  curtailing  the  prohibitions  derivable  from  this 
principle.    A  large  section. of  modern  opinion,  not  satisfied  with 

1  Watkins,   Holy  Matrimony,  p.  681.^     ' 

n  ■  (257) 


258  FORBIDDEN    DEGREES. 

the  amendments  already  made  to  the  list  of  prohibitions  for- 
merly recognized,  demands  further  revision. 

Former  revisions  of  the  forbidden  degrees  give  a  certain 
precedent  for  further  progress  in  the  same  direction ;  pre- 
cedent, however,  which  is  not  to  be  incautiously  followed,  inas- 
much as  many  Christian  teachers,  speaking  with  a  deep  sense 
of  responsibility,  have  maintained  that,  so  far  at  least  as  the 
Church  itself  is  concerned,  its  right  of  revision  does  not  extend 
to  those  prohibitions  which  have  a  definite  Biblical  sanction. 
It  is  further  largely  maintained  that  to  this  class  of  prohibitions 
must  be  added  a  few  others  contained  by  obvious  implication, 
though  not  verbally  included,  in  the  Biblical  list,  e.g.,  marriage 
between  an  uncle  and  niece  or  between  a  nephew  and  the 
widow  of  his  maternal  uncle. 

How  far  this  latter  contention  is  sound  is  a  question  which 
modern  Christian  thinkers  may  legitimately  take  into  con- 
sideration. Is  it  out  of  harmony  with  a  reverential  estimate  of 
the  Divine  Word,  to  require  the  excision  from  the  ecclesiastical 
prohibitory  code,  not  indeed  of  any  of  those  prohibitions  which 
the  natural  development  of  human  moral  instincts  and  revealed 
Divine  approval  both  support,  but  of  certain  of  those  which 
receive  a  less  definite  sanction?  Are  Christian  believers  justi- 
fied in  demanding  that  their  consciences  be  relieved  of  yokes 
which  are  of  authoritative  human,  but  which  may  not  be  of 
Divine,  imposition? 

The  further  question  whether  Christian  opinion,  even  if  it 
accepts  a  moral  obligation  for  Christian  society  itself,  is  justi- 
fied in  legally  requiring  its  observance  from  people  who  are 
differently  persuaded,  must  be  discussed  before  the  close  of 
this  chapter. 

Of  the  small  class  of  prohibitions  the  retention  or  aboli- 
tion of  which  form,  as  has  been  said,  legitimate  subjects  of 
Christian  consideration,  modern  interest  centers  round  the 
question  of  marriage  with  a  deceased  wife's  sister.  The  prohi- 
bition of  marriage  within  this  degree  of  affinity  is  neither  sup- 
ported nor  discountenanced  with  any  definiteness  in  the  Bible. 


FORBIDDEN    DEGREES.  259 

On  the  one  hand,  the  inference  that  marriage  with  a  deceased 
wife's  sister  is  wrong  was  not  seemingly  made  at  the  date  of 
the  Code  of  Hohness  itself  ;2  for  such  a  marriage,  according  to 
the  best  interpretation  of  Lev.  18:  18,  is  implicitly  permitted. 
On  the  other  hand,  this  fact  alone  does  not  prove  that  the 
inference,  when  drawn  at  a  later  stage  of  religious  and  moral 
development,  may  not  be  just;  for  conscience  problems  are  not 
always  settled  for  Christians  by  the  letter  of  Holy  Scripture. 
It  is  contended  that  the  principle  of  the  ideal  unity  is  discover- 
able in  embryo  in  the  Code ;  and  it  is  argued  that  the  acceptance 
of  this  principle  compels  by  a  logical  process  the  further  accept- 
ance of  the  prohibitions  referred  to. 

It  must  be  considered  presently  whether  this  logical 
process  is  wholly  sound.  But  first,  in  order  to  understand  the 
development  of  religious,  including  Christian,  opinion  on  mar- 
riage prohibitions,  we  must  study  this  part  of  the  Code  of 
Holiness  in  relation  to  its  history.  The  marriage  prohibitions 
of  the  Code  of  Holiness  and  the  principle  upon  which  they  are 
based  can  only  be  rightly  estimated  when  taken  in  historical 
relation  to  the  ideas  in  the  atmosphere  of  which  they  were 
formed.  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  noted — as  a  primary  fact — that 
"the  Ancient  Law,  i.e.,  the  Code  of  Holiness,  in  forming  its 
marriage  prohibitions  has  a  special  regard  to  habitation  in 
common  as  requiring  to  be  safeguarded  against  lust,  declaring 
forbidden  those  persons  to  whom  sexual  approach  was  the 
more  easy  from  the  fact  of  their  being  members  of  the  same 
household."^ 

The  Christian  Church,  apparently  finding  this  principle 
inadequate,  established  another  on  which  to  base  further  prohi- 
bitions.    This  was  the  multiplicatio  amiciticr.^     "A  secondary 


2  The  Levitical  enumeration  of  forbidden  degrees  belongs  to  a 
Biblical  document  known  to  students  as  the  Code  of  Holiness,  a  series 
of  legal  enactments  whose  inspiring  idea  is  the  danger  of  outraging 
by  unholy  human  conduct  the  Holiness  of  God. 

3  Suppl.  Pars.,  iii,  Sum.  Theol.,  Qu.  liv,  art.  4,  ad  fin. 

4  Id.  eod.  loc,  art.  3. 


260  FORBIDDEN   DEGREES. 

object  of  marriage  is  the  drawing  of  mankind  together  and  the 
multipHcation  of  friendship ;  inasmuch  as  a  man  stands  to  his 
wife's  relations  as  he  does  to  his  own.  Consequently  damage 
would  accrue  to  the  multiplication  of  friendship,  if  anyone  were 
to  take  to  wife  a  woman  related  to  him ;  because  out  of  this 
act  no  new  friendship  would  originate  to  anyone  through  the 
instrumentality  of  the  marriage." 

This  new  principle  is  more  subtle  and  artificial  than  the 
former  one ;  its  workings  are  less  easily  grasped ;  and  in  order 
to  work  out  the  problem  before  us,  we  must  go  behind  the 
medieval  theory,  and  start  from  the  historical  principle  under- 
lying the  prohibitions  in  the  Code  of  Holiness. 

Originally,  relationship,  to  be  effective  in  causing  sexual 
intercourse  to  be  tabooed,  must  involve  habitual  intimacy,  close 
membership  in  the  same  household  from  infancy.  The  family 
was  the  unit  of  primitive  society,  and  the  family  might  be  either 
patriarchal  or  matriarchal  in  form.  Out  of  the  family,  dwell- 
ing together  in  one  household,  develops  the  wider  conception  of 
the  clan. 

Whether,  in  the  history  of  mankind  at  large,  the  patri- 
archate or  the  matriarchate  is  the  older  institution,  is  still  de- 
bated; but  in  the  section  with  which  we  are  here  particularly 
concerned,  the  older  Semites,  so  far  as  the  history  of  their 
social  evolution  is  known,  the  matriarchate  is  the  form  of  the 
family  which  comes  first  into  view.-"'  Kin^iip  was  reckoned 
through  the  mother ;  and  there  was  no  bar  to  marriage  in  the 
male  line,  except  probably  that  a  man  could  not  marry  his  own 
daughter.*^  But  at  the  date  of  the  codification  of  the  Levitical 
laws,  the  matriarchate  had  given  way  to  a  newer  institution, 
that  of  the  patriarchate.  Consequently,  we  trace  the  influence 
of  both  these  institutions  in  the  Code  of  Holiness.  The  flesh 
of  a  man's  flesh  {slf'er  b^saro)  was  (a)  his  immediate  blood 


•''  The  earliest  form  of  marriage  mentioned  in  the  Bible  is  de- 
scribed in  terms  which  recall  the  matriarchate.  W.  Robertson  Smith, 
Kinship,  pp.  176,  177  (new  ed.,  pp.  207f.). 

*^  W.  Robertson  Smith,  Kinship,  p.  163  (new' ed.,  p.  192). 


FORBIDDEN    DEGREES.  261 

relations  through  male  or  through  female  descent;  (b)  the 
wives  of  his  nearest  male  kindred,  sexual  union  with  whom  in- 
volved the  symbolical  profanation  of  what  a  man  ought  to 
regard  as  sacrosanct,  the  sexual  rights  of  his  near  male  kindred. 
The  woman  over  whom  those  sexual  rights  had  once  been 
exercised,  even  though,  owing  to  her  husband's  death,  they 
were  now  non-existent,  had  been  rendered  sacred  by  their 
touch. '^  This  idea,  which  manifestly  has  its  roots  in  the 
patriarchal  system,  justifies  to  ancient,  and  in  some  degree  to 
modern,  ways  of  thinking,  such  a  prohibition  as  that  referring 
to  a  deceased  brother's  wife,  union  with  whom  would  not  be 
objectionable  on  physiological  grounds;  for  it  would  involve  no 
question  of  inbreeding.  But  it  is  condemned  by  the  ethical 
requirements  of  the  patriarchal  family.  And  the  Code  of  Holi- 
ness upholds  these  ethical  requirements,  (c)  A  third  class  of 
prohibitions  concerns  certain  women  closely  related  by  affinity, 
who  were  at  one  time  actually,  and  at  a  later  time  were  re- 
garded as  potentially,  intimate  members  of  the  same  matri- 
archal clan  or  even  household,  as  a  man  at  his  marriage ;  and 
thus,  on  Westermarck's  principles,  would  be  taboo  to  that  man. 

"i"  The  thought  will  occur  here  that  the  acceptance  of  this  view 
involves  a  condemnation  of  any  and  every  repetition  of  marriage  on 
the  part  of  woman,  as  implying  a  symbolical  profanation  of  her  former 
husband's  sexual  rights.  That  such  a  condemnation  has  existed,  and 
has  exercised  great  influence  in  the  history  of  human  sexual  relations,  is 
indeed  amply  proved  by  Westermarck  and  others.  Many  peoples  have 
accounted,  and  many  do  still  account,  the  remarriage  of  a  widow  to 
be  an  insult  to  the  memory  of  her  former  husband,  without  regard 
to  the  heaviness  of  the  yoke  thus  imposed  upon  the  conscience  of  the 
woman.  But  neither  Hebrew  nor  Christian  thought  indorses  this 
notion  in  its  entirety ;  nor  discountenances  in  any  general  or  unsym- 
pathetic way  the  remarriage  of  widows.  It  is  only  in  the  smaller  field 
now  before  us — the  projected  remarriage  of  a  widow  with  one  of  her 
deceased  husband's  own  near  relations — that  the  best  Hebrew  ethical 
thought  makes  use  of  the  notion  which  has  had  so  extensive  an  in- 
fluence elsewhere.  And  even  in  this  field  exceptional  circumstances — 
in  the  case  of  levirate  marriage — might  occasion  the  supersession  of 
the  notion  that  the  marrying  of  a  brother's  widow  was  a  symbolic 
dishonoring  of  the  dead  brother's  nakedness. 


262  FORBIDDEN    DEGREES. 

To  uncover  the  nakedness  of  a  mother,  sister,  mother's 
daughter,  wife's  mother,  and  wife's  daughter,  did  not  in  every 
case  involve  disrespect  toward  the  sexual  rights  of  some  near 
male  kinsman;  nor  do  we  estimate  the  offense  sufficiently  by 
referring  it  vaguely  to  instinctive  sexual  repulsion  originating 
in  the  idea  of  domestic  intimacy.  Its  illegality  had  a  farther 
definiteness  derived  from  the  recognition  of  what  was  true  and 
holy  in  the  matriarchate.  This  class  of  prohibitions  illustrates 
in  some  measure  the  personal  rights  of  woman.  For  the  matri- 
archate, even  if,  as  some  have  maintained,  it  did  not  in  its 
origin  imply  consideration  for  women,  but  rather  the  reverse, 
must  none  the  less  have  tended  to  emphasize  the  social  impor- 
tance of  woman,  and  gradually  to  surround  womanhood  with 
reverence  and  esteem. "^^  A  sexual  union  of  a  man  with  his 
mother  would  be  not  merely  a  symbolical  outrage  on  his  father's 
sexual  rights ;  it  would  be  an  outrage  on  her  own  womanhood, 
sanctified  in  respect  of  that  man  by  the  relation  of  maternity. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  Levitical  prohibitions  are 
drawn  up  on  the  basis  of  a  coalition  of  early  ideas  derived  from 
both  the  matriarchate  and  the  patriarchate.^  It  is  further  to 
be  noticed  that  at  the  date  at  which  the  Code  of  Holiness  was 
drawn  up,  the  importance  of  the  individual  was  increasing 
relatively  to  that  of  the  family.  It  is  this  fact  which  accounts 
tor  the  absence,  in  the  prohibition  of  marriage  between  a 
widow  and  her  late  husband's  brother,  of  allusion  to  the  ex- 
ceptional case  of  levirate  marriage.^  And  although,  as  we  have 
seen,  it  is  the  taboo  of  domiciliar  habitation  in  common  which 
gives  the  primary  impulse  to  these  prohibitions,  yet  the  forma- 
tion of  a  wider  conception  of  effective  relationship  is  already 
evident  than  one  which  refers  it  to  such  habitation. 


'^^  See  C.  Gasquoine  Hartley,  op.  cit.,  pt.  ii. 

8  Here  we  observe  the  ethical  superiority  of  the  Levitical  incest 
prohibitions  to  those  of  Hammurabi  (sections  154-158),  which  reflect 
a  patriarchal  condition  of  society,  and  are  based  on  regard  for  the 
sexual  rights  of  the  male. 

9  Driver-White,  on  Lev.  18 :  16,  in   Haupt,  SBOT. 


FORBIDDEN    DEGREES.  263 

Thus  the  forbidden  degrees  in  the  Code  of  HoHness  exert 
an  educative  influence  in  the  direction  of  the  ideal  unity  of  man 
and  wife.  Efifective  relationship  gradually  becomes  defined  m 
the  direction  indicated  by  the  ideal  unity.  This  doctrine  is  no 
late  ecclesiastical  fiction  or  pious  imagination.  It  meets  us  in 
the  early  legend  of  the  formation  of  woman.  "Ideals,"  says 
Dillmann,  commenting  on  Gen.  2 :  24,  "are  here  set  before  us, 
the  realization  of  which  is  a  concern  for  the  further  movement 
of  history."!^  The  ideal  unity  is  without  hesitation  approved 
by  Christ  as  the  perfect  expression  of  the  Divine  Will,  and  it  is 
sufficiently  prominent  in  the  New  Testament  teaching  on  mar- 
riage. But  not  all  the  possible  consequences  derivable  from 
this  doctrine  are  adopted  by  the  Code  itself,  or  commend 
themselves  to  the  enlightened  moral  sense  of  mankind.  These 
consequences,  when  reviewed  in  detail,  must  be  interpreted  and 
estimated  in  relation  to  other  human  needs  and  obligations. 
Neither  does  the  emphasis  laid  by  our  Lord  and  the  New  Testa- 
ment writers  on  the  ideal  unity  guarantee  the  correctness  of  all 
the  inferences  subsequently  drawn  in  respect  of  marriage  pro- 
hibitions. The  passage  from  Genesis  in  which  this  unity  is 
symbolized  is  quoted  in  the  New  Testament  in  discourses  on 
the  durability  of  marriage  and  conjugal  fidelity.  It  must  be 
used  with  caution  in  elucidating  problems  of  affinity.  In  post- 
biblical  times  Christian  thought,  working  from  the  starting 
point  of  the  ideal  unity,  discovered  a  large  number  of  forbidden 
degrees  which  later  Christians,  reverting  to  the  wiser  spirit  of 
the  Code  of  Holiness,  repudiated. 

Having  considered  the  basal  principles  and  the  animating 
spirit  of  the  Code  of  Holiness,  it  remains  to-  look  more  closely 
at  the  question  of  marriage  with  a  deceased  wife's  sister.  The 
prohibition  of  such  a  marriage  is  certainly  derivable  in  logic 
from  the  doctrine  of  the  ideal  unity,  and  is  so  far  potentially 


10  Cp.  also  W.  P.  Paterson  in  Hastings's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible, 
J.  V.  Marriage,  vol.  ii,  p.  265.  "According  to  the  antique  mode  of 
thought,  to  say  that  the  first  man  had  one  wife  only,  was  as  much  as 
to  say  that  monogamy  was  the  ideal  system." 


264  FORBIDDEN    DEGREES. 

contained  in  the  Code;  but  there  remains,- as  has  already  been 
hinted,  the  further  question,  whether  it  is  right  in  practice  to 
press  logic  to  the  extent  of  forming  that  prohibition,  and 
whether  such  a  prohibition  is  necessary  for  the  conservation  of 
holiness.  In  this  doubt  we  find  the  origin  of  the  comparative 
leniency  in  disciplinary  treatment  extended  by  one  or  two  of 
the  early  Church  councils  to  people  who  had  contracted  such 
marriages.  Bishop  Gore  in  a  discussion  in  Convocation  in- 
ferred from  this  leniency  that  marriage  with  a  deceased  wife's 
sister  was  not  considered  by  early  Christian  society  as  contrari- 
ant  to  the  law  of  God,  but  only  as  deserving  to  be  followed  by 
some  form  of  discipline.  Dr.  Moberley  more  justly  argued 
that  the  imposition  of  discipline,  however  lenient,  implies  the 
abstract  acceptance  of  the  principle  revealed  in  God's  Word, 
the  ideal  unity  afifected  in  marriage ;  and  thus  implicitly  con- 
demns the  marriage  in  question  as  contrary  to  that  Word.  The 
most  that  can  be  said  is  that  the  lack  of  emphasis  in  the  de- 
cisions of  the  early  councils  reveals  the  existence  of  hesitation 
about  the  application  in  detail,  in  regard  to  the  marriage  of 
kindred,  of  the  principle  of  the  ideal  unity. 

The  Code  of  Holiness  forbids  a  man  to  marry  his  wife's 
nearest  kin  in  the  ascending  and  descending  line ;  because  to 
form  a  sexual  union  with  either  her  mother  or  her  daughter 
would  be  to  violate  directly  the  principle  of  the  matriarchate,  to 
ignore  completely  the  validity  of  descent  through  the  female 
line.  A  peculiar  sanctity  surrounded  her  of  whose  flesh  and 
from  whose  womb  had  come  the  woman  whom  a  man  chose  to 
be  his  wife ;  and  any  female  issue  of  the  wife's  womb  was  in 
like  manner  directly  of  the  wife's  flesh,  and  therefore  taboo  to 
her  stepfather. 

But  the  wife's  sister  stands  at  a  greater  distance  from  the 
husband.  She  is  not  so  directly  of  the  wife's  flesh  as  the  near- 
est female  kin  in  the  ascending  and  descending  line.  The  rela- 
tionship in  her  case  travels  round  two  sides  of  a  triangle,  in- 
stead of  over  one  line,  as  in  the  case  of  the  mother  or  the 
daughter. 


FORBIDDEN    DEGREES.  265 

Mother 

Man      =  Wife  ^-  Sister 

I 
Daughter 

Moreover,  the  fact  that  at  the  date  of  the  drawing  up  of 
the  Code  of  HoHness,  Hebrew  society  reckoned  descent  no 
longer  through  the  mother,  but  through  the  father,  caused  a 
man's  wife's  sister  to  remain  part  of  a  different  household  from 
his  own ;  for  the  man  was  not  received  into  the  woman's  house- 
hold, as  under  the  matriarchate,  but  she  into  his.i^  Conse- 
quently, after  the  decease  of  the  wife,  neither  any  breach  of 
physiological  law,  nor  any  potential  infraction  of  a  near  male 
relative's  sexual  rights,  nor  any  marked  outrage  on  instinct,  is 
caused,  so  far  as  the  man  is  concerned,  by  marrying  the  sister. 

So  far  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  the  teaching  of  the  Code 
of  Holiness  favors  the  notion  that  marriage  with  a  deceased 
wife's  sister  is  an  actual  outrage  on  the  ideal  unity ;  granting, 
as  we  may  do,  that  principle  to  be  discoverable  in  embryo  in  the 
Code.  But  there  are,  further,  ethical  considerations  having 
their  root  in  the  responsibility  of  the  zvoman  in  regard  to  the 
■character  of  a  sexual  union.  If  it  is  indecent  for  a  man  to 
Ignore  his  late  brother's  sexual  rights  over  a  woman  by  marry- 
ing the  widow,  is  it  not,  by  parity  of  reasoning,  indecent  for  a 
woman  to  marry  a  man  in  regard  to  whom  her  departed  sister 
had  recently  exercised  such  rights?  In  answering  this  ques- 
tion we  must  observe  that  there  was  no  doubt  a  time  in  Semitic 
society  when  no  such  consideration  as  this  would  have  pre- 
sented itself  to  the  Semite  mind.  In  the  parallel  case — that  of 
levirate  marriage — the  man  who  married  the  childless  widow 
of  a  dead  brother  did  not  despise,  but  rather  fulfilled  his 
brother's  sexual  rights ;  and  probably  enough,  the  woman  con- 
senting to  become  the  wife  of  her  sister's  widower,  was  at  one 


11  Driver-White,  on  Lev.  18:18,  SBOT. 


266  FORBIDDEN    DEGREES. 

time  thought  of  as  honoring,  rather  than  as  dishonoring,  the 
memory  of  the  sister. 

But  as  the  family  ceased  to  be  the  all-important  social  idea, 
and  the  rights  and  responsibilities  of  the  individual  came  into 
fuller  view,  the  union  of  a  man  with  his  .brother's  widow  came 
to  be  looked  on  as  an  unholy  dishonor  done  to  the  memory  of  a 
sacred  tie.  And  woman  as  well  as  man,  though  not  perhaps  to 
the  same  extent,  is  considered,  even  at  the  date  of  the  Code  of 
Holiness,  to  have  both  rights  and  responsibilities  in  forming 
a  sexual  union.  For  her,  as  well  as  for  man,  to  see  forbidden 
nakedness  is  unchaste  and  merits  condign  punishment.i^  The 
sexual  rights  and  responsibilities  of  woman  are  recognized  yet 
more  clearly  in  the  Christian  moral  system  ;13  though  many 
moralists,  including  apparently  the  Bishops  of  the  Lambeth 
Conference,  will  not  allow  her  responsibilities  at  any  rate  to 
rank  with  those  of  man. 

Hence,  although  valid  arguments  are  not  all  on  the  side  of 
the  traditionalists  in  this  matter,  it  is  by  no  means  without  rea- 
son that  Christian  thinkers  have  largely  drawn  the  inference 
that  marriage  with  a  deceased  wife's  sister,  if  not  flagrantly 
opposed  to,  cannot  be  held  to  be  in  complete  accord  with,  the 
spirit  of  the  Code  of  Holiness. 

Moreover,  the  arguments  of  social  inexpediency  commonly 
urged  against  the  legalizing  of  marriage  with  a  deceased  wife's 
sister — that  a  modest  sister-in-law  could  not  take  care  of  her 
brother-in-law's  household  after  the  death  of  his  wife,  or  make 
long  visits  to  her  sister  while  living;  that  some  wives  would 
grow  jealous  of  their  sisters;  that  endearments  between  rela- 
tions by  marriage  would  become  irregularis* — are  not  decisive, 
but  neither  are  they  valueless.  Those  who  would  maintain 
the  prohibition  in  England  have  recently  endeavored  to  press 
these  arguments — perhaps  rather  more  than  they  can  bear.     It 

12  Lev.  20:12,  14,  17,  20.  For  the  sexual  rights  of  a  married 
woman,  cp.  Ex.  21 :  10. 

13  I  Cor.  7:4. 

14  S.  B.  James,  in  The  Guardian,  June  5,  1901. 


FORBIDDEN    DEGREES.  267 

has  not  been  shown,  so  far  as  the  writer  knows,  that  the  refusal 
to  make  the  principle  of  the  ideal  unity  in  marriage  cover  the 
prohibition  of  marriage  with  a  deceased  wife's  sister  is  fraught 
with  general  immoral  consequences.  The  writer  has  been  un- 
able to  get  evidence  in  the  Australasian  Colonies  bearing  on 
this  point. 

The  suggestions  common  in  polemical  literature  on  this 
subject,  that  wives  would  frequently  be  jealous  of  sisters, 
and  that  adulteries  with  the  latter  are  more  probable  when  the 
fear  of  incest  is  removed,  are  of  the  nature  of  speculation. 
The  present  writer  further  considers  that  there  is  a  need  of 
additional  proof  before  the  frequent  assertion  that  marriage 
with  a  deceased  wife's  sister  is  in  demand  mainly  in  the  upper 
classes,  and  that  the  middle  and  lower  classes  are  generally 
opposed  to  its  legalization,  becomes  acceptable.  He  feels  doubt- 
ful whether  this  conscientious  opposition  exists,  whether  at  any 
rate  it  is  widespread  among  the  lower  classes.  A  case  known 
to  him,  that  of  a  widowed  farmer,  a  churchgoer  and  to  all 
appearance  a  well-conducted  religious  man,  who  proposed  to 
two  of  his  late  wife's  sisters  in  succession,  without  seemingly 
being  conscious  of  any  moral  unfitness  in  such  a  proceeding, 
may  be  representative  of  a  more  or  less  general  lack  of  disap- 
proval of  such  marriages  in  that  class. 

On  the  other  side  it  must  be  said  that  in  spite  of  what  is 
frequently  urged  in  reference  to  possible  suffering  caused  by 
the  absence  of  legal  sanctions  for  marriage  within  this  degree, 
there  does  not  seem  to  be  such  a  call  to  sympathize  with  a  man 
enamored  of,  yet  precluded  from  marrying,  his  late  wife's 
sister,  as  may  exist  in  the  case  of  one  who  is  sexually  separated 
from  his  living  wife,  yet  forbidden  to  remarry.  A  British 
statesman  in  the  House  of  Commons  expressed  a  view  of  the 
traditional  position  for  which  its  supporters  have  as  good  a 
right  to  claim  the  sanction  of  common  sense  as  their  opponents 
have  for  their  own  arguments  on  the  side  of  change :  "Are 
there  not  women  enough  in  the  world,  that  a  man  should  want 
to  marry  his  deceased  wife's  sister?"     No  question  arises  in 


268  FORBIDDEN    DEGREES. 

this  dispute  (so  far  at  least  as  the  man  is  concerned),  as  it 
might  easily  do  in  regard  to  divorce,  of  an  intolerable  yoke 
imposed  on  the  sexual  nature  by  ecclesiastical  and  civil  law. 
It  is  not  as  if  the  prohibition  to  marry  the  deceased  wife's  sister 
involved  a  total  deprivation  of  reasonable  sexual  gratification, 
and  finally  destroyed  the  sex  life. 

All  things  considered,  the  conclusion  seems  justified  that 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  reverent  and  enlightened  Chris- 
tian conscience,  the  relationship  of  the  wife's  sister  to  the 
husband  is  of  such  a  character  as  to  render  marriage  with 
her  unbefitting,  inconvenient  in  the  strict  sense  of  that  word. 
It  is  not  so  manifest  an  outrage  on  holiness,  or  so  flagrant  and 
reckless  a  breach  of  the  principle  of  conjugal  unity,  as  to  be  de- 
serving of  epithets  implying  a  severer  condemnation.  The 
principle  of  sacramental  unity  in  marriage  is  of  final  signifi- 
cance for  Christians  ;^^  and  that  principle,  though  it  does  not 
make  the  said  relationship  so  efifectively  and  decisively  pro- 
hibitive of  marriage  as  several  other  relationships,  yet  gives 
it  a  prohibitory  character  which  cannot  be  altogether  ignored. 
As  therefore  in  the  matter  of  divorce,  so  here,  we  maintain  that 
it  is  the  right  and  the  duty  of  the  Church  to  uphold  that  prin- 
ciple before  her  own  members,  and  tO'  obtain  for  it  as  wide  an 
acceptance  as  possible.  But  the  further  question  arises  whether 
the  method  adopted  should  not  be  rather  moral  and  intellectual 
suasion  than  legislation.  It  is  true  that  the  legislature  of  a 
country  the  majority  of  whose  inhabitants  are  professed 
Christians  ought  certainly,  and  might  be  expected,  to  be  in 
sympathy  with  Christian  ethical  opinion  on  any  point  where 
that  opinion  is  practically  unanimous  and  decided.  For  ex- 
ample, neither  Christian  morality  nor,  generally  speaking, 
civilized  legislation  influenced  by  Christianity  permits  bigamy 
or  polygamy;  because  although,  as  some  even  among  Christian 
thinkers  have  held,^^  objections  of  some  force  may  be  found 
against  the  wholesale  moral  condemnation  of  polygamy  in  the 


!•''  Watkins,  Holy  Matrimony,  p.  654. 

16  Westermarck,  op.  cit.,  p.  434;  Howard,  op.  cii.,  vol.  i,  p.  390. 


FORBIDDEN    DEGREES.  269 

history  of  mankind ;  and  although  there  is  record  of  tem- 
porary compromise  made  by  the  Christian  Church  with  regard 
to  pluraHty  of  wives  {c.g-,  in  evangehzing  polygamous  commu- 
nities of  savages),  yet  the  practically  unfavorable  influence  and 
the  inferior  ethical  aspects  of  polygamy  are  sufficiently  clear 
to  cause  it  to  be  discountenanced,  as  being  by  contrast  with 
monogamy  dishonoring  to  God  and  hurtful  to  the  interests  of 


man 


17 


It  might  even  be  urged — taking  a  concrete  instance — 
that  the  New  Zealand  Legislature,  by  legalizing  in  1900  mar- 
riage between  a  woman  and  her  deceased  husband's  brother, 
displayed  an  unmeet  want  of  sympathy  with  instructed  Chris- 
tian opinion ;  for  in  the  Code  of  Holiness,  which  is  certainly 
viewed  by  Christians  as  a  Divinely  inspired  document,  such  a 
marriage  is  definitely  forbidden ;  and  the  whole  history  of  this 
prohibition  and  of  its  acceptance  by  the  Christian  Church 
shows  that  its  roots  lie  deeper  than  the  merely  contemporary 
social  usages  and  ethical  conceptions.  In  communities  where 
descent  is  reckoned  through  the  male  line,  and  where  conse- 
quently the  wife  is  thought  of  as  taken  into  her  husband's 
household,  not  z'ice  versa,  the  sexual  union  of  a  woman  with 
her  deceased  husband's  brother  must  assuredly  be  more  dis- 
tasteful than  the  converse  case.  But  on  the  question  of  mar- 
riage with  a  deceased  wife's  sister,  it  need  hardly  be  a  matter 
for  surprise  if  the  modern  State  does  not  see  eye  to  eye  with 
the  Catholic  Church ;  even  though  the  view  of  the  Church  is. 
as  it  would  seem,  on  the  whole  the  preferable  view.  On  a 
point  about  which  there  is  so  much  difference  of  opinion  even 
among  Christians,  and  in  regard  to  which  the  inspired  Word 
itself  does  not  give  perfectly  clear  guidance,  it  is  at  least 
questionable  whether  the  dictum  of  the  Church — however  pure 
and  right  it  may  be  ideally — should  be  enforced  by  the  methods 
of  human  legislation. 

Thus  we  are  brought  finally  to  the  ix>sition  taken  up  by 
many  of  the  Anglican  clergy,  and  enunciated  by  Canon  Mac- 

^"  See  Additional  Note  H  on  Polygamy. 


270  FORBIDDEN   DEGREES. 

Coll  in  The  Guardian.  Speaking  of  the  "chaos  of  marriage 
laws"  in  the  British  Empire  "all  sanctioned  by  the  State,"  he 
pertinently  asks,  "How  can  churchmen  expect  to  be  able  to 
insulate  one  particular  Christian  law  and  rivet  it  on  the  necks 
of  multitudes  who-  own  no  allegiance  to  the  Church,  or  even 
to  Christianity?"^^ 

Quite  a  number  of  people  admit  that  these  marriages  do 
not  take  place  on  the  high  level  of  reverence  and  self-control 
required  by  the  Christian  ideal  of  marriage,  yet  object  to  their 
non-recognition  by  the  State.  A  speaker  at  a  meeting  of  the 
English  Church  Union  censured  this  position  on  the  ground 
that  it  implied  an  inadmissible  ethical  theory  of  "first-  and 
second-  class  marriages ;"  in  other  words,  that  the  celebration 
of  marriage  on  a  visibly  lower  level  than  the  Christian  stand- 
ard could  not  be  tolerated.  This  objection  does  indeed  hold 
good  when  considered  in  its  proper  relation,  viz.,  to  Christian 
ideals. 

The  Church  recognizes  certain  impediments  of  marriage ; 
and  unless  they  are  separately  disproved,  they  remain  equally 
valid  in  fact,  even  if  not  equiponderable  in  ethical  importance. 
The  Church  cannot  itself  act  on  a  principle  of  ethical  differ- 
entiation of  marriages.  The  Christian  conscience  cannot  allow 
the  influence  of  a  visibly  imperfect  doctrine — one  that  does 
not  fully  satisfy  the  enlightened  moral  sense — in  regard  to 
itself.  But  the  above  objection  loses  in  force  when  prematurely 
introduced  into  the  midst  of  the  as  yet  inevitably  lower  ethical 
ideals  of  the  modern  State. 

What  the  Church  has  everywhere  a  right  to  require  is  that 
there  shall  be  no  compulsion  upon  her  clergy  in  the  matter. 
They  should  not  be  forced  either  to  perform  the  marriage  cere- 
mony for  such  unions,  or  to  lend  the  consecrated  buildings  of 
which  they  are  in  charge  for  any  such  function.  They  should 
not  be  penalized  if  they  temporarily  require  from  members  of 
their  congregations  who,  by  the  use  of  the  civil  ceremony,  have 


18  The  Guardian,  June  12,  1901. 


FORBIDDEN    DEGREES.  271 

contracted  such  marriages,  a  disciplinary  abstention  from  the 
Holy  Communion.  19  Finally,  it  belongs  to  the  teaching  office 
of 'the  Church  to  lay  before  society  those  reasons,  based  on 
the  doctrine  of  the  ideal  unity,  and  on  considerations  of  social 
expediency,  which  should  assuredly  cause  any  Christian  man 
or  woman,  whose  mind  is  receptive  of  spiritual  teaching  on 
marriage,  to  seek  elsewhere  than  so  close  at  hand  the  rational 
gratification  of  the  sexual  longing  and  the  just  development  of 
the  sex  life. 


19  It  is  noticeable  that  a  defender  of  the  legal  prohibition  in  Eng- 
land ignores  this  aspect  of  the  matter.  See  Marriage  Law  Defense 
Union  Tracts,  No.  xxxix,  p.  29.  Yet  it  is  no  cause  for  surprise  that 
members  of  the  Church  of  England  entertain  but  slight  hopes  of  the 
revival  of  ecclesiastical  discipline.  Religious  organizations  ought  to 
be  able  to  establish  their  own  conditions  of  membership,  and  to  carry 
out  their  ecclesiastical  system,  unhindered  by  the  State;  provided  that 
in  so  doing  they  inflict  no  injury  on  the  organic  life  and  development 
of  the  community  at  large.  The  English  Legislature,  in  the  connection 
with  which  we  are  dealing,  has  shown  a  very  confused  perception  of 
this  elementary  principle  of  social  life.  The  Act  of  1907,  legalizing 
marriage  with  a  deceased  wife's  sister,  recognized  the  variations  of 
religious  opinion  on  the  subject,  and  inserted  accordingly  a  clause 
which  was  believed,  not  merely  by  the  ordinary  clergyman  or  layman 
of  the  Church  of  England,  but  by  legal  experts,  to  be  intended  to  pro- 
tect clergymen  who  for  conscientious  reasons  declined  to  accept  the 
working  of  the  new  Act  in  certain  important  ecclesiastical  connections. 
It  was  believed  to  cover  cases  of  the  refusal  of  Communion,  i.e.,  that 
if  a  clergyman  thought  himself  bound  in  conscience  to  refuse  Com- 
munion, under  and  according  to  the  existing  ecclesiastical  regulations, 
to  parties  who  had  contracted  the  marriage  in  question,  the  State  would 
not  take  cognizance  of  such  refusal,  would  in  fact  leave  the  settle- 
ment of  the  religious  question  to  the  religious  organization.  Such  an 
attitude  seems  correct.  If  the  State  thought  it  due  to  protect  the  con- 
sciences of  clergymen  in  one  direction,  viz.,  by  not  compelling  them  to 
celebrate  marriages  which  they  thought  to  be  wrong,  why  did  it  not  make 
the  protective  clause  operative  in  another  almost  equally  important 
direction, — the  conditions  of  administration  of  the  Holy  Communion? 
If  it  is  worth  while  protecting  peoples'  consciences  at  all,  it  is  worth 
while  doing  it  thoroughly,  i.e.,  in  respect  of  all  well-grounded  scruples ; 
and  in  view  of  the   state  of   opinion   on   the   subject,   the   refusal   to 


272  FORBIDDEN    DEGREES. 

administer  Communion  is,  with  some  clergymen,  a  well-grounded 
scruple,  as  well  grounded  as  their  primary  objection  to  celebrate  this 
kind  of  marriage. 

Yet  when  a  test  case,  the  Thompson-Bannister  case,  occurred,  it 
was  judicially  decided,  after  much  litigation,  that  this  latter  course 
could  not  be  adopted  without  admitting  the  possibility  of  a  clergy- 
man's totally  ignoring  such  marriages  as  might  take  place  under  the 
new  Act ;  and  so,  on  occasion,  celebrating  a  marriage  which  would 
be  bigamous  in  the  eyes  of  the  State. 

But  though  the  soundness  of  this  opinion  as  a  logical  deduction 
from  the  language  of  the  proviso  cannot  be  denied,  the  accuracy  of 
the  forecast  may  be  disputed  on  the  probabilities  of  the  case;  for  the 
clergyman  does  not  cease  to  be  a  citizen.  He  cannot  therefore^  in' 
performing  a  service  for  two  persons,  ignore,  or  be  allowed  to  ignore, 
the  secular  incident  of  the  previous  marriage  of  one  of  them;  since 
by  so  doing  he  would  be  placing  persons,  or  strictly  speaking  helping 
them  to  place  themselves,  in  a  false  position  before  the  secular  law. 

In  brief,  the  case  stands  thus :  The  harm  done  by  the  State's 
ignoring  the  refusal  to  administer  Communion,  is  problematical ;  be- 
cause although  a  sufficiently  serious  social  inconvenience  is  imaginable 
— Lord  Loreburn  imagined  it  in  his  judgment — as  a  result,  the  chances 
of  its  actually  occurring  are  very  small ;  while  the  injury  done  to  the 
persons  aggrieved  by  their  inability  to  receive  the  Holy  Communion 
at  the  hands  of  a  particular  minister  of.it,  is  trifling;  for  in  the  state 
of  ecclesiastical  opinion  about  their  marriage,  they  can  without  diffi- 
culty obtain  what  they  want  elsewhere.  Consequently  they  suffer  no 
appreciable  injustice ;  whereas,  the  good  accruing  from  the  State's 
ignoring  of  the  refusal  in  question,  is  preponderant  and  assured ;  it 
is  the  justice  done  to  the  conscientious  objector  and  his  sympathizers. 
And  the  possibility  of  a  further  social  good's  being  procured,  should 
not  be  left  out  of  the  account.  The  interests  of  collective  morality 
may  be  served ;  for  the  new  legislation  is  but  experimental,  not  final ; 
the  objectors  have  some  reason  on  their  side,  and  they  may  be  right. 

Consequently,  the  concluding  judgment  in  the  Bannister-Thomp- 
son case,  considered  as  a  move  or  incident  in  the  moral  evolution  of 
society,  was  a  blimder  or  a  disaster. 

The  whole  legal  aspect  of  the  Thompson-Bannister  incident  was 
defective.  Neither  the  function  of  jus  dare  nor  that  of  jus  diccre 
were  adequately  performed.  The  protective  clause  did  ne^ither  one 
thing  nor  the  other.  It  did  not  protect  thoroughly;  and  yet  its  pres- 
ence in  the  Act  suggested  belief  in  protection ;  so  that  in  the  result 
it  acted  as  a  trap  for  the  Anglican  clergy.  The  law  in  its  function 
of   jiis    dicere    might    have    perceived    this    insufficiency,    and    made    it 


FORBIDDEN    DEGREES.  273 

good  by  interpretation;  but  the  judges  on  whom  this  duty  devolved 
seemed  actuated  by  a  desire  to  protect  the  laity  against  a  hypothetical 
clerical  tyranny,  and  society  in  general  against  clerical  lawlessness, 
neither  of  which  dangers  really  existed,  as  has  been  demonstrated 
above. 

It  would  have  been  both  more  politic,  and  more  in  accord  with 
the  principles  of  justice,  for  the  State  to  have  let  the  Church  alone, 
in  such  a  matter;  and  to  have  contented  itself  with  allowing  the  new 
Act  to  win  ecclesiastical  acceptance  by  its  inherent  reasonableness;  to 
have  awaited — it  might  have  done  so  with  no  inconsiderable  measure 
of  confidence — the  development  indicated  by  the  late  Bishop  Collins, 
of  Gibraltar,  that  while  the  law  of  the  State  cannot  of  itself  alter 
any  rule  of  the  Church,  it  is  "quite  possible  that  the  rule  of  the  Eng- 
lish Church  (or  of  any  part  of  the  Church)  might  be  altered  in  the 
future  in  the  direction  of  the  new  law."  (Life  of  William  Edward 
Collins,  by  A.  J.  Mason,  D.D.) 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

The  Sexual  in  Art. 

Condemnation  of  Erotic  Art  Considered — Classical  Art — The 
Nude — Zola's  View — Art  and  Word-painting — Indecent  Pictures — 
Legislation. 

Frederick  Robertson,  in  a  passage  which  Colonel  Seton 
Churchilli  quotes  with  approval,  reflects  forcibly  upon  the  sen- 
suality produced  among  the  ancient  Greeks  by  their  own  works 
of  art.  It  is  undeniable  that  the  sexual,  in  forms  most  alluring 
to  the  carnal  instinct,  is  extremely  prominent  in  the  Greek  art 
of  certain  periods ;  and  that  erotic  art  progressed  in  Greece  and 
Rome  along  a  line  of  moral  degeneration.  "It  was  especially 
Scopas  of  Paros  and  Praxiteles  of  Athens,  about  one  genera- 
tion after  Myron  and  Polycletus  {i.e.,  in  the  fourth  century 
B.C.),  who  gave  the  reflex  of  their  time  in  their  productions. 
Their  works  expressed  the  softer  feelings  and  an  excited  state 
of  mind,  such  as  would  make  a  strong  impression  upon  and 
captivate  the  senses  of  the  beholders.  .  .  .  The  legendary 
circles  to  which  most  of  their  ideal  productions  belong  are 
those  of  Dionysus  and  Aphrodite,  a  fact  which  also  shows  the 
character  of  the  age.  Cephissodorus,  a  son  of  Praxiteles 
made  his  art  subservient  to  passions  and  sensual 
desires."^ 

Later  on,  the  same  evil  comes  to  view  in  Roman  society. 
Cicero  and  Pliny  mention  "libidines" — indecent  pictures^  and 
basreliefs — as  used  to  adorn  Roman  villas  and  furniture ;  and 
such  pictures  are  found  in  the  villas  of  Pompeii.  The  evidence 
does  not,  indeed,  fully  support  the  assertion  of  Frederick  Rob- 
ertson, that,  in  the  judgment  of  the  heathen  themselves,  erotic 


1  Forbidden  Fruit  for  Young  Men  (6th  ed.),  p.  190. 

2  Smith,  Smaller  Dictionary  of  Antiquities,  j.  v.  Statuaria  Ars. 

3  Cp.  Propertius,  ii,  5.  (qu.  by  J.  Muller,  Keuschheitsideen,2  p.  46.) 

(274) 


THE    SEXUAL   IN    ART.  275 

art,  and  particularly  the  nude  in  such  art,  was  responsible  for 
the  sexual  corruption  and  excess  prevailing  in  their  society. 
This  consciousness  did  not,  at  any  rate,  press  heavily  upon  the 
best  minds  among  the  Romans.-*  The  great  satirists  do  not  make 
nude  art  one  of  the  objections  of  their  animadversion,  Pliny's-^ 
reference  to  the  fact  that  the  nude  in  art  had  a  Greek  source ; 
ancient  Roman  statues  being  draped — "togatse" — is  not  made 
in  a  tone  of  reprehension.  Livy*^  and  Sallust"  record  the  im- 
portation of  Greek  works  of  art  into  Rome;  regretfully 
enough,  but  not  in  such  terms  as  tO'  imply  that  they  had 
specially  in  mind  the  harm  done  to  sexual  morality  by  sucli 
iniportations. 

The  historical  instances  in  which  the  sexual,  and  particu- 
larly the  nude  in  art,  seem  to  be  accompanied  by  abnormal 
sexuality  in  society,  do  not  justify  us  in  condemning,  without 
more  ado  and  without  qualification,  the  use  of  the  nude.'^ 
Indeed,  it  must  be  remembered,  in  passing,  that  the  nude  in 
any  given  production,  is  not  necessarily  the  erotic.  Rodin's 
Le  Baiser  is  a  group  both  erotic  and  nude ;  the  Renunciation 
of  St.  Elizabeth  is  a  picture  in  which  the  nude  is  used,  but  it  is 
not  erotic.  Nor  may  we  hastily  conclude — in  the  case  of  art 
which  is  certainly  erotic,  and  which  employs  the  nude — that  this 
latter  element  is  inevitably  immoral.  It  is  the  artist's  province 
to  represent  human  life,  its  good  and  its  evil.  He  cannot,  there- 
fore, wholly  and  on  all  occasions  eschew  the  nude ;  though 
doubtless  a  heavy  responsibility  rests  upon  him  for  his  method 
of  using  it.    Human  life  cannot  always  be  represented  draped 


■*  Cp.  Friedlaender,  Darstellungen  aus  der  Sittengeschichte  Roms,^ 
i,  p.  261. 

5  Nat.  Hist,  xxxiv,  10. 

6  Hist.  XXV,  40. 

7  Cat.  n. 

8  Cp.  J.  Miiller,  Die  Keuschheitsideen  in  ihrer  geschichtlichen 
Entwickelungi,  p.  21.  This  fact  claims  special  consideration  in  North 
America,  where  a  prudish  fear  of  the  nude  appears  to  be  gaining 
ground.  (Die  Verhiillung  der  Nacktheit  in  Nordamerika,  in  Die  neue 
Gen.,  Jahrg.  10,  Heft  6). 


276  THE    SEXUAL   IN    ART, 

either  in  literature  or  in  art.  The  BibHcal  story  itself,  the  mir- 
ror of  life  as  life  is,  cannot  find  adequate  expression  on  canvas 
or  in  marble  if  the  nude  and  the  sexual  be  tabooed. 

If  it  be  granted  that  erotic  art,  even  in  its  best  and  purest 
forms,  appeals  to  and  in  some  manner  arouses  the  sexual  in- 
stinct, it  must  not  be  too  readily  inferred  that  such  appeal 
magnifies  harmfully  or  depraves  the  instinct.  Its  aim  may  be 
to  impress  society  with  the  beauty  and  purityl  of  true  erotic 
pleasure,  such  pleasure  as  is  a  legitimate  object  of  men's  aspira- 
tion. Zola  points  out^  that  the  erotic  art  of  the  Renaissance 
reflected  sexual  health  and  vigor.  Conversely,  it  must  have 
contributed  to  the  formation  of  right  and  healthful  ideals  in 
the  sexual  relation. i*^ 

The  ethics  of  erotic  art  really  differ  in  no  way  from  those 
of  erotic  literature ;  for  the  nude  may  be  as  vividly  represented 
by  word-painting  as  on  canvas.  A  peculiarly  rich  and  beautiful 
specimen  of  such  word-painting  finds  a  place  in  the  Canon. 
Let  the  Song  of  Songs  be  compared  with  the  Second  Idyll  of 
Theocritus.  In  realistic  sensuous  word-representation  of  the 
nude  the  inspired  poem  is  the  superior.  What  differentiates 
it  ethically  from  the  powerful  Greek  love-poem  is  the  motive 
which  elevates  and  directs  it.  The  poem  of  Theocritus  is 
purely  sensuous ;  the  pulse  of  desire  throbs  fiercely  in  every 
line.  It  is  an  erotic  word-picture  in  all  the  beauty  of  nudity. 
So  too  is  the  Song  of  Songs ;  but  here  the  current  of  passion  is 
directed  and  controlled  by  the  monogamic  teaching  of  the  poem. 
Some  passages  in  the  song  might  indeed  give  a  wrong  impulse 
to  a  mind  which  was  too  ignorant,  coarse  or  perverse  to  learn 
the  real  lesson  of  the  song;  but  no  one  would  venture  on  that 

9  Fecondite,  p.  50. 

10  Havelock  Ellis  shows  that  in  times  when  maternity  was  re- 
garded with  healthy  sentiment,  the  prevailing  ideal  of  womanly  beauty 
emphasized  that  function.  Frequently  there  has  even  come  into  vogue 
an  artificial  exaggeration  of  the  secondary  sexual  characteristics  ex- 
pressive of  maternity.  (H.  Ellis,  Studies,  iv,  pp.  164ff.)  It  may  be 
added  that  recently  attempts  have  been  made  to  utilize  the  appeal  of 
erotic  art  to  cure  inversion  (Hirschfeld,  Die  Homosexualitat,  p.  434). 


THE    SEXUAL   IN    ART.  277 

account  to  wish  the  song  less  perfect,  or  less  glowing  as  a 
specimen  of  inspired  erotic  literature. 

Similarly,  a  picture,  or  a  group  of  statuary,  if  it  contain 
a  right  conception  and  a  pure  motive,  is  not  necessarily  immoral 
because  it  is  erotic,  or  because  it  contains  the  nude.  That  in 
some  minds  it  may  evoke  dangerous  emotions  is  an  accident  to 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Song  of  Songs — an  analogous 
creation,  in  another  sphere  of  activity— is  equally  liable. 

Hence,  it  seems  that  the  artist's  responsibility  to  society 
touches  his  erotic  conception,  rather  than  the  accidents  of  its 
expression.  If  the  group  or  the  picture  conveys  an  immoral 
idea,  or  represents,  in  a  manner  of  approval,  an  immoral  sub- 
ject, it  stands  condemned;  it  becomes  a  vehicle  of  false  and 
pernicious  teaching;  and  the  beauty  of  its  execution  does  not 
redeem  it. 

The  true  and  final  solution  of  this  problem  is  the  educational 
one,  the  ethical  training  of  the  esthetic  sense.  This  is  finely  indicated, 
in  reference  to  the  producers  of  artistic  creations,  in  the  Preghiera 
universale,  with  which  a  modern  book  of  Christian  devotion,  Adveniat 
Regniini  Tuuin,  fitly  closes  : — 

"God  Who  in  science,  speech  and  art,  hast  given  us  the  means  of 
drawing  near  to  the  True  and  of  expressing  the  Beautiful,  give  to 
the  workers  in  science,  literature  and  art  an  apprehension  of  those 
sacred  ideals;  so  that  they  may  feel  how  great  is  the  sacrilege  of 
employing  these  means  to  serve  evil  ends,  of  making  base  or  vulgar 
merchandise  of  them,  of  falsifying  in  men's  minds  the  concept  of  the 
True  and  the  Beautiful;  and  the  blasphemy  of  creating  an  apparent 
contrast  between  the  True,  the  Beautiful,  and  the  Good.  Make  them, 
O  Lord,  fully  and  entirely  sensible  of  the  intimate  harmony  between 
Being  and  Life;ii  whereby  the  True  and  the  Beautiful  are  nothing 
else  but  avenues  of  approach  to  the  Good,  yea,  to  the  ineffable  splen- 
dor of  the  manifestation  of  the  highest  Good."i- 

In  a  society  where  nude  art  becomes  excessively  popular, 
it  is  indeed  probable  that  the  ethical  element  in  such  art  will 
be  frequently  left  out  of  account.    The  reasons  which  justify, 

11  A  reference  to  the  beautiful  chapter  iv  of  G.  A.  Right's  The 
Unity  of  Will  (Chapman  and  Hall)  is  not  irrelevant  here. 

12  Adveniat  Regnum  Tuum   (Milano),  p.  544. 


278  THE    SEXUAL   IN    ART. 

and  at  the  same  time  direct  and  restrain,  erotic  art  will  cease 
to  have  their  due  weight.  And  further,  even  if  the  producer  of 
a  work  of  art  has  conscientiously  striven,  for  his  part,  to 
satisfy  the  claims  of  ethics,  the  beholders  may  fail  to  discern 
its  ethical  purpose.  The  general  public  thinks  and  feels  pri- 
marily with  the  ordinary  impressions  of  life;  a  fact  which 
gives  artistic  exhibits  a  crude  social  significance  not  commen- 
surate with  their  esthetic  or  symbolic  rationale. ^^  Hence,  prac- 
tically, the  excessive  popularity  of  the  nude  is  a  dangerous 
symptom,  the  moral  cause  of  which  should  be  counteracted  by 
educational  and  other  influences.  Many  productions  may  be 
on  a  low  plane  of  morality,  though  on  a  high  plane  of  art. 
They  may  be  beautiful,  but  purely  sensuous.  Others,  again — 
and  these,  perhaps,  do  the  major  portion  of  the  harm  attributed 
to  nude  and  erotic  pictures — are  at  once  artistically  mediocre 
and  morally  pernicious.  The  sale  or  exposure  of  such  pictures, 
indecent  both  in  idea  and  in  execution,  in  shop  windows,  in 
mutoscopic  exhibitions,  and  elsewhere,  certainly  call  for  the 
application  of  restraint.  The  kernel  of  difficulty  in  the  matter 
is  the  definition  of  an  immoral  picture.  In  erotic  art  and 
literature  the  line  of  demarcation  between  the  moral  and  the 
immoral  becomes,  to  those  who  lack  insight  into  an  artist's  aims 
and  motives,  at  times  finely  drawn.  What  there  is  of  evil  in 
the  motive  and  purpose  of  a  picture  may  be  so  skillfully  posed 
as  t:o  bring  the  picture  just  out  of  range  of  any  legal  prohibi- 
tion. And  the  difficulty — it  may  almost  be  said,  the  practical 
impossibility — of  exercising  over  erotic  pictures,  when  on  a 
high  plane  of  art,  a  wise  and  just  censorship,  renders  it  the 
more  imperative  that  the  censorship  of  such  pictures,  even  in  a 
lower  class  of  art,  should  never  be  open  to  the  charge  of 
ill-advised  and  hasty  prudery. 

On  the  whole,  it  is  not  well  to  exaggerate  the  importance 
of  the  "indecency"  of  pictures  as  a  cause  of  impurity.  Such 
pictures  are  rather  a  symptom  than  a  cause  of  sexuality  in  a 
society ;  a  symptom,  indeed,  with  a  certain  reactive  power.    At 


13  G.  Fonsegrive,  Arte  e  Pornographia,  in  II  Rogo,  num.  1. 


THE   SEXUAL   IN   ART.  279 

all  events,  the  allegation  of  such  indecency  should  be  made  only 
after  careful  observation.  There  was  much  significance  in  the 
answer  made  by  a  Home  Secretary  in  the  House  of  Commons 
to  the  question  whether  the  government  intended  to  take  steps 
to  suppress  indecent  mutoscopic  exhibitions — that  he  had 
walked  certain  parts  of  London  for  hours  in  the  vain  search  for 
exhibitions  that  could  properly  be  thus  described.  I  have, 
however,  myself  seen  in  France  popular  photographic  exhibi- 
tions that  were  both  immoral  in  subject  and  indecent  in  pres- 
entation. 

The  general  principles  of  opposition  to  these  antisocial 
phenomena  have  been  embodied  in  various  modern  legislations. 
The  New  Zealand  Act  of  1892,  which  makes  liable  to  penalty 
the  exposure  of  any  picture  or  written  matter  which  is  of  an 
indecent,  immoral,  or  obscene  nature,  or  which  the  court  shall 
be  satisfied  is  intended  to  have  an  indecent,  immoral,  or  ob- 
scene effect,  and  the  English  Act  of  similar  purport,  though 
somewhat  less  careful  expression,  seem  to  afford  proper 
machinery  for  the  purpose  for  which  they  are  devised.  Prob- 
ably a  discerning  administration  of  such  existing  acts  would 
provide  the  necessary  safeguard  to  public  morality,  so  far  as 
this  particular  danger  is  concerned.  Such  an  administration 
can  only  be  secured  by  the  education  of  public  opinion ;  and  it 
has  therefore  been  thought  worth  while  in  this  essay  to  attempt 
to  indicate  the  grounds  on  which  the  condemnation  or  tolera- 
tion of  an  erotic  picture  must  ultimately  rest. 

A  suggestion  of  Colonel  Seton  Churchill  that  censorial 
powers  should  be  delegated  by  municipalities  to  some  fit  person, 
with  a  view  of  checking  the  exposure  of  such  pictures,  might 
not  infrequently  result  in  a  harassing  and  fussy  oversight.  At 
any  rate,  it  would  be  better  to  have  a  board  of  three  or  four 
persons  than  a  single  censor. 

And  when  in  a  given  case  the  social  nuisance  of  cheap  and 
pornographic  eroticism  is  fully  unmasked,  it  merits  certainly 
firm  and  possibly  stern  treatment. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

On  the  Nature  and  Ethics  of  Impure  Language. 

Language  and  Convention — History  of  Dirty  Words — The  Test 
of  Motive — Horace  and  Juvenal — St.  Paul. 

This  is  a  part  of  our  subject  which  has  at  length  begun 
to  receive  systematic  and  careful  attention  at  the  hands  of 
Christian  moralists.  A  society  has  been  formed  in  England 
to  redeem  conversation  from  blasphemy  and  impure  sexuality. ^ 

Very  often  it  is  difficult  to  see  the  basis  of  our  popular 
notions  of  what  constitutes  impurity  in  language.  Why  should 
one  word  be  generally  considered  a  coarse  and  bad  word ;  and 
another,  meaning  precisely  the  same  thing,  be  considered  a 
harmless  and  legitimate  word?  It  is  at  bottom  to  a  large  ex- 
tent a  matter  of  convention.  Modern  society  has  retained  for 
its  polite  use  various  words  and  phrases  expressing  certain 
things,  acts,  or  ideas ;  and  has  declared  that  other  words  and 
phrases,  expressing  just  the  same  things,  are  fit  only  for  school- 
boys and  very  vulgar,  uneducated  people.  The  process,  here 
described,  the  evolution  of  convention  in  language,  has  been 
going  on  in  other  languages  on  a  much  larger  scale  than  in  our 
own.  Mankind  in  its  primitive  state  already  learns  to  set  apart 
groups  of  words  expressing  the  phenomena  of  sex,  for  special 
use  by  particular  classes  in  the  community ;  or  by  one  sex  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  other.^  In  the  Japanese  vocabulary  there 
is  a  whole  set  of  men's  words,  and  another  of  women's  words. 


1  In  his  sympathetic  account  of  the  hard  conditions  which  favor 
the  growth  of  immorality  in  the  country  districts  of  England,  Richard 
Jefferies  notices  the  power  for  general  demoralization  possessed  by  the 
random  coarse  word  (The  Toilers  of  the  Field,  p.  134). 

2  The  natives  of  Polynesia  and  Queensland  are  said  to  have  a 
decent  and  an  indecent  vocabulary.  (Havelock  Ellis,  Studies,  ed.  3, 
vol.  i,  p.  67.)  See  farther,  for  the  influence  of  sexual  convention  on 
language,  Crawley,  The  Mystic  Rose,  pp.  46fif. 

(280) 


IMPURE   LANGUAGE.  281 

The  man's  word  for  food,  for  instance,  is  not  the  same  as  the 
woman's;  and  a  woman  is  considered  a  very  vulgar  woman,  if 
she  uses  the  man's  word.  This  is  one  of  the  developments  of 
convention.  And  it  has  been  curiously  continued.  In  the  lan- 
guages of  civilized  nations,  ancient  as  well  as  modern,  there  is  a 
secret  vocabulary,  a  crowd  of  strange  words  which  live  under- 
ground like  the  moles,  or  in  the  darkness  like  the  bats,  and 
which  seem  quite  startling  and  outlandish,  if  by  any  chance 
they  find  their  way  into  print.  Such  words  are  found  in  the 
Hebrew  Bible.  The  Q'ri,  in  two  or  three  places,  being  shocked 
at  certain  vulgar  words  used  by  the  K'thib,  substitutes  politer 
words.  No  doubt  these  vulgar  words  have  often  a  very  inter- 
esting history  behind  them.  Tliey  were  not  always  slangy  and 
disreputable.  Words  have  a  life-history,  like  people;  and  if 
one  possessed  the  philological  learning  requisite  to  find  it  out, 
what  a  long  and  strange  and  eventful  history  some  of  our 
vulgar  words  would  be  seen  to  have.  Our  coarse  words  have 
often  led  lives  like  those  of  our  coarse,  outcast  women.  They 
were  respectable  once.  They  took  their  places  among  the  other 
words  in  the  language.  And  gradually  they  have  dropped  into 
a  fallen,  degraded  state.  It  has  come  about  more  by  the  ill- 
usage  of  society  than  by  vice  inherent  in  the  words  themselves. 
The  words  would  not  be  coarse  now,  if  they  had  not  for  gen- 
erations past  been  coarsely  used,  dragged  in  the  dirt,  and  flung 
about  with  all  sorts  of  evil  motives,  without  any  effort  being 
made  to  reclaim  them. 

What  is  known  as  "good  society,"  while  it  refuses  to  admit 
into  its  circle  bad  people  of  the  lowest,  coarsest  type,  welcomes 
a  good  many  who  are  really  just  as  bad,  but  whose  lewdness 
is  less  open.  Here,  again,  it  is  the  same  with  words.  Social 
usage  does  not  tolerate  words  and  expressions  that  are  openly 
and  impudently  coarse ;  but  it  admits  others  which  are  no  better 
either  in  character  or  in  history,  simply  because  their  meaning 
is  better  concealed.^ 

Our  consideration,  then,  of  what  amounts  to  coarseness  in 

3  See  H.  Ellis,  Studies,  vol.  i,  (ed.  3),  pp.  6Sff. 


282  IMPURE   LANGUAGE. 

language,  and  what  does  not,  is  complicated  by  our  conventional 
ideas  of  propriety.  Apart  from  them,  it  seems  that  the  test  as 
to  whether  language  is  bad  and  impure  or  not,  is  the  moral  test 
of  the  motive  and  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  used.  There  are 
many  instances  in  literature  of  very  coarse  language  being  used, 
and  yet  used  in  a  way  that  could  not  possibly  offend  any  right- 
minded  person's  moral  sense.  Juvenal,  for  instance,  is  one  of 
the  coarsest  of  writers ;  but  his  tone  is  manly,  and  his  morality 
upright  and  severe.  He  employed  coarse  language,  not  because 
it  gave  him  an  evil  pleasure  to  do  so;  but  because  in  dealing 
with  the  subjects  and  the  manners  of  which  he  had  to  write,  its 
use  was  necessary  and  inevitable. 

A  writer  like  Horace,  on  the  other  hand,  does  not  use 
coarse  language  to  the  same  extent ;  but  his  moral  tone  is  cer- 
tainly lower  than  Juvenal's.  And  other  contrasts  of  the  same 
kind  could  be  found  in  literature. 

St.  Paul  himself,  where  he  condemns  filthiness,  foolish 
talking,  and  jesting  which  are  not  convenient,^  is  preferring 
his  indictment  rather  against  the  way  in  which  words  are  used, 
than  against  the  words  themselves.  If  he  were  condemning 
coarse  expressions  per  se,  without  reference  to  the  motive 
underlying  their  use,  his  words  might  be  turned  against  himself  ; 
for  now  and  then,  in  his  own  epistles,  his  language  certainly 
does  not  err  in  the  direction  of  overrefinement.^ 

In  our  belief  in  the  moral  nature  of  God  we  have  a  guar- 
antee of  the  ultimate  manifestation  of  a  judgment  upon  speech 
which  will  pierce  all  our  conventionalities  and  social  hypoc- 
risies. When  people  commit  sins  of  speech  of  the  kind  alluded 
to  here,  and  think  of  them  afterward  with  regret,  they  have 
not  to  think  merely  of  the  particular  word  or  expression  used. 
The  questions  which  surround  its  use  are  the  more  important. 
Was  it  used  of  necessity,  or  carelessly  flung  into  conversation  ? 
Toward  whom  was  it  used,  or  in  whose  hearing?     Was   it 


4  This  passage  is  in  St.   Paul's  spirit,  if  not  by  his  hand.     Eph. 
5:4. 

5  Gal.  5  :  12. 


IMPURE    LANGUAGE.  283 

intended  to  produce  a  good  effect,  or  bad  one  ?    Was  its  motive 
right  or  wrong? 

It  is  not  for  every  word  men  speak  that  they  shall  give 
account  in  the  Day  of  Judgment.  It  is  for  ttSv  prjfia  dpyov,^ 
every  idle  word;  not  for  the  existence  in  human  speech  of 
words  which,  however  uncouth  in  appearance,  are  the  natural 
outgrowth  of  human  conditions;  but  of  the  circumstances 
which  surround,  and  the  motives  which  underlie  their  use. 


6  St.  Matthew  12 :  36,  "Werk-  und  f ruchtlos,  unniitz  namlich  im 
sittlichen  Sinne."  (Nosgen  in  loc,  Strack  and  Zockler,  Kurzg,  Kom- 
mentar.) 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Sexual  Perversions. 

Modern  Investigation  of  this  Obscure  Subject — Causes  of  Perver- 
sions— Sexual  Inversion — Proposed  Toleration  of  Homosexuality  Con- 
sidered— Masochism — Sadism — Other  Types,  Bestiality,  Senile  Imrndr- 
ality — Sterilization. 

It  would  be  easy  to  make  the  present  chapter  by  far  the 
most  painful  and  repulsive  in  the  volume.  Here,  more  than 
anywhere  else  in  our  subject,  the  task  of  separating  the  precious 
from  the  vile^  confronts  us  in  all  its  appalling  difficulty,  so  in- 
extricably are  those  two  principles  entangled,  and  so  vastly  does 
the  latter  excel  the  former  in  social  bulk  and  prominence.  But 
sexual  perversions  will  not  here  be  dealt  with  in  any  detail. 
They  can  be  fully  studied  in  such  works  as  those  of  H.  Ellis. 
Moll,  Krafft-Ebing,  Fere,  and  Tarnowsky.  Yet  it  is  necessary 
to  accord  here  a  brief  notice  to  the  better  known  anomalies  of 
the  sexual  instinct,  for  the  reason  that  they  are  occasionally 
known  to  exist  in  otherwise  fairly  healthy  and  normal  sub- 
jects. It  by  no  means  follows  that  a  person  is  a  moral  leper 
and  a  menace  to  society,  because  he  has,  e.g.,  a  congenital  algo- 
lagnic  or  inverted  tendency.  He  may  be  generally  well  dis- 
posed, well  principled,  and  religious.  His  abnormality  may 
never  find  expression  in  overt  act.  It  may  be  the  battle  of  his 
life  to  control  and  subjugate  this  tendency ;  and  he  may  succeed 
so  far  as  to  induce  his  sexual  system  to  find  sufficient  gratifica- 
tion in  normal  and  legitimate  sexual  relations.  Therefore,  the 
consideration  of  this  subject  does  not  belong  solely  to  the 
provinces  of  the  alienist  and  the  penologist. 

Dr.  Mercier's  discussion  of  the  relation  between  sexual  perversion 
and  volition  leads  to  no  conclusive  result.     He  attempts,  though  ex- 


ijer.  15:  19. 
(284) 


SEXUAL   INVERSION.  285 

hibiting  much  hesitation,  to  put  abnormal  and  normal  desire  on  the 
same  footing  in  regard  to  responsibility,  contending  that  perverted 
desire  is  no  more  urgent  than  normal  desire ;  and  that  if  society  re- 
quires, under  penalty,  that  the  latter  should  be  often  inhibited,  there 
is  no  injustice  in  its  making  the  same  demand  in  connection  with  the 
former.2  But  even  if  Mercier's  view  of  the  comparative  urgency  of 
the  desires  in  question  is  right,  he  leaves  out  of  account  the  fact  that 
the  subject  of  normal  desire  can  hope  for  a  legitimate  outlet  for  it, 
while  the  other  subject  has  no  such  consoling  prospect.^  Consequently, 
in  the  case  of  the  sexual  pervert,  the  strain  on  volition  must  continue 
indefinitely.  Hence,  as  already  observed,  a  remedy  may  have  to  be 
sought  elsewhere  than  in  the  province  of  volition. 

Of  sexual  abnormalities  we  may  notice  here  inversion,  and 
the  active  and  passive  aspects  of  algolagnia. "*  The  researches 
of  sexual  scientists  such  as  Havelock  Ellis,  Fere,  Moll,  and 
others,  have  demonstrated  that  not  all,  but  some  cases  of  in- 
version or  homosexuality,  i.e.,  the  turning  in  of  the  sexual 
instinct  toward  the  subject's  own  sex,  are  due  to  the  presence 
in  the  individual  of  a  congenital  tendency.  As  in  the  lower 
animals,^  so  in  man,  occasional  instances  of  imperfect  sex  dif- 
ferentiation are  found,  the  result  of  some  deficiency  of  nutri- 
tion in  the  embryo,  or  of  otherwise  incomplete  processes  of 
gestation. 


~  C.  A.  Mercier,  Criminal  Responsibility,  pp.  143ff. 

3  C{}.  Hirschfeld,  Die  Homosexualitat,  p.  438. 

4  Havelock  Ellis,  adopting  Schrenk-Notzing's  terms,  pointed  out 
(Studies,  iii,  pp.  95,  101)  the  impropriety  of  the  names  "sadism"  and 
"masochism."    These  have,  however,  become  current. 

^  E.g.,  among  cattle.  See  Geddes  and  Thomson,  Evolution  of 
Sex,  p.  41n ;  also  the  chapter  on  Hermaphroditism.  The  existence  of 
congenital  sexual  inversion  among  animals  is  probable  (Hirschfeld, 
Die  Homosexualitat,  ch.  29).  Enough  is  known  of  the  processes  by 
which  sex  is  determined  to  warrant  the  opinion  that  in  certain  cases, 
owing  to  the  action  of  some  imperfectly  perceived  cause,  the  deter- 
mination may  be  abnormal  and  incomplete.  External  signs  of  con- 
genital inversion,  e.g.,  unusual  shape  of  the  pelvis  or  the  breasts,  are 
sometimes  observable  (Senator  and  Kaminer,  op.  cit.,  ii,  701,  1047)  ; 
but  these,  according  to  Moll,  are  rare,  and  to  be  viewed  with  caution 
(994). 


286  SEXUAL   INVERSION. 

It  is  in  neurotic  families  with  a  vitiated  heredity  that  con- 
genital inversion  and  other  abnormal  tendencies  may  be  ex- 
pected to  appear.  It  is  not  necessary  that  there  should  be 
visible  malformation  of  the  genitals.  A  defective  correlation 
between  the  sexual  system  and  its  corresponding  brain  centers 
may  be  the  underlying  condition  of  inversion.  The  inverted 
tendency  will  probably  be  latent  in  childhood  while  the  sex  life 
is  undeveloped;  though  even  thus  early,  indications  of  an  ab- 
normal state  may  sometimes  be  discoverable.  Then  some 
event,  in  itself  perhaps  apparently  trifling,  some  shock  to  the 
sexual  susceptibilities  of  the  growing  child — a  thoughtless 
neglect  on  the  part  of  an  older  person  of  the  pregnant  canon, 
"Maxima  debetiir  piieris  reverentia"^ — or  in  later  life  a  wound 
of  some  other  kind  inflicted  upon  the  sexual  nature,  e.g.,  a  love 
disappointment,  may  give  the  impulse  to  the  latent  misdirection 
of  the  sexual  instinct,  and  inversion  declares  itself  more  fully  in 
the.  mind  of  the  subject.  His  emotions,  colored  with  more  or 
less  of  sexuality,  flow  out  toward  members  of  his  own  sex ;  he 
becomes  conscious  of  a  physical  attraction  toward  them  which 
normal  individuals  experience  only  in  regard  to  the  other  sex. 
The  inverted  tendency  manifests  itself  in  his  sensual  dreams. 
In  less  pronounced  cases  of  inversion,  normal  sexuality  may  be 
experienced  side  by  side  with  this  anomalous  form  of  it ;  but 
the  true  congenital  invert  feels  a  positive  repulsion  to  normal 
sexual  relations. 

It  must  be  noted,  however,  that  the  carnal  impulse  may  not 
bulk  largely  in  the  invert's  mind  at  all ;  the  inverted  tendency 
may  be  of  an  almost  entirely  emotional  character;  or  even  if  a 
strong  physical  element  is  present,  it  may  be  kept  wholly  in 
check  by  the  general  uprightness  of  the  invert's  character,  or  by 
his  high  religious  principles. 

To  deal  with  the  complicated  problems  connected  with  the 
origin,  course,  and  control  of  an  inverted  tendency  would  re- 
quire at  least  a  good-sized  volume.    It  is  sufficient  here  to  refer 


^  Cp.   Tarnowsky,   L'Instinct   Sexuel   et   ses   Manifestations   Mor- 
bides,  p.  30. 


SEXUAL   INVERSION.  287 

to  one  or  two  of  the  most  obvious  and  important  matters 
originating  in  the  consideration  of  the  subject. 

First,  where  neuropathic  conditions  are  believed  to  exist  in 
a  family,  where  the  heredity  is  vitiated  or  overrefined,  special 
care  ought  to  be  taken  to  keep  the  sexual  development  of  mem- 
bers of  that  family  free  from  dangerous  influences.  Additional 
reasons  exist  in  such  cases  for  observing  the  general  precautions 
which  should  attend  the  growth  of  the  sex  life  in  the  child,  and 
which  have  been  dealt  with  elsewhere  in  this  volume.  Inver- 
sion in  the  adult  is  sometimes  preceded  by  an  algolagnic  tend- 
ency in  the  child ;  consequently  parents  and  guardians  should 
beware  lest  by  their  treatment  and  punishments  of  the  child 
they  strengthen  the  algolagnic  instinct. 

One  result  of  the  study  of  sexual  inversion  has  been  the 
suggestion  put  forward  by  some  modern  scientists,  that  the 
attitude  of  the  law  as  existing  in  European  countries  should 
undergo  a  change ;  and  some  countries  in  the  van  of  civiliza- 
tion— France  being  the  typical  one — have  given  an  actual  lead 
in  this  direction.'^  It  is  argued  that  where  the  invert  is  not 
responsible  for  his  abnormality ;  where,  owing  to  the  congenital 
misdirection  of  his  instinct  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  obtain 
the  normal  development  of  the  sex  life,  the  legal  ban  should  be 
taken  off  his  cohabitation  with  one  of  his  own  sex,  provided 
that  in  such  cohabitation  public  decency  was  respected,  and 
that  the  invert  had  not  resorted  to  compulsion  or  the  seduction 
of  a  minor,  as  a  preliminary  step  to  such  cohabitation.  It  is 
pointed  out  with  considerable  force  that  the  refusal  to  allow  a 
true  invert  to  follow  his  inclination  may  be  harmful  in  a  gen- 
eral way  to  his  physical  well-being — we  have  already  seen 
that  the  constant  suppression  of  the  normal  sexual  instinct  may 
react  unfavorably  upon  some  nervous  organisms,  and  we  can- 
not but  conclude  that  the  same  result  may  be  reached  in  some 
cases  of  the  suppression  of  the  abnormal  instinct — and  that  in 
consequence  the  power  of  the  invert,  who  may  be  of  intellectual 


'^Hirschfeld    (Die  Homosexualitat,  pp.  842ff.)   gives  a  conspectus 
of  legislation  on  the  subject. 


288  SEXUAL   INVERSION. 

capacity  above  the  average,  to  perform  his  life's  work,  may  be 
seriously  impaired.  In  short,  it  is  contended  that  in  the  light  of 
increased  modern  knowledge  of  the  conditions  of  inversion,  the 
law  should  no  longer  undertake  the  wholesale  abolition  of 
homosexual  relationships,  but  their  strict  and  judicious 
regulation. 

In  estimating  these  contentions,  it  will  be  well  in  the  first 
place  to  glance  at  the  references  to  homosexuality  in  Holy 
Scripture. 

The  earliest  of  these  references  depict  homosexuality  as  occur- 
ring amid  the  worst  surroundings  of  excess  and  license  ;8  and  homo- 
sexual prostitution,  over  which  some  of  the  ancient  societies  had  placed 
the  aegis  of  religion,  is  denounced  without  qualification  in  the  Bible.'^ 
The  developed  legal  thought  of  the  Old  Testament  condemns  homosex- 
uality in  seA'^  The  fact  is  that  the  primary  problem  of  revealed  ethics, 
in  connection  with  homosexuality,  was  to  strengthen  humanity's  un- 
certain opposition  to  it, — uncertain,  because,  if  we  have  regard  to 
humanity  as  a  whole,  neither  instinct  nor  religious  convictions  have 
been  consistently  opposed  to  homosexuality.  Revelation  set  itself  to 
develop  the  psychological  elements  which  worked  contrary  to  homo- 
sexual inclination.  This  was  effected  partly  by  the  connotation  of 
violence  and  license  with  homosexuality,  an  idea  reflecting  a  not  in- 
frequent actual  association,  and  Scripturally  illustrated  by  the  dramatic 
narratives  referred  to  above.  It  has  been  truly  said  that  the  glare  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah  is  reflected  throughout  the  whole  Bible.n  This 
connotation  and  this  presentation  of  judgment  prefaced  the  condem- 
nation, by  the  Law  of  Holiness,  of  homosexuality  in  se ;  a  legal  attitude 
which,  as  Hirschfeld  remarks,i2  reflects  a  developed  social  severity 
foreign  to^.  or  only  spasmodically  apparent  in,  earlier  times. 

The  New  Testament  confirmed  this  antipathy  to  homosexuality, 
repeating  the  denunciation  of  homosexual  prostitutioni^  and  exhibit- 
ing the  phenomenon  as  a  specially  prominent  symptom  of  general 
moral    depravity.i^     It   is   clear   that   there   is   here    an   abhorrence  of 


8  Gen.  19;  Judg.  19. 

9  Deut.  23:7;  I  Kings,  22  :  46 ;  2  Kings  23  :  7. 

10  Lev.  18 :  22,  20 :  13. 

11  G.  A.  Smith,  Historical  Geography  of  the  Holy  Land. 

12  Hirschfeld,  Die  Homosexualitat,  p.  813. 

13  Rev.  22 :  15. 

14  Rom.  1 :  27 ;  I  Cor.  6 :  9,  10 ;  I  Tim.  1 :  9,  10. 


SEXUAL   INVERSION.  289 

homosexual  practices  in  se:  a  late  allusion,  in  the  homiletic  letter  to 
the  Ephesians,!^  condemns  them  even  if  occurring  in  secret  i.e.,  in 
circumstances  where  public  decency  is  not,  presumably,  infringed. 

Indeed,  were  it  not  for  one  Scriptural  allusion  to  homosexual 
love,  we  should  be  forced  to  conclude  that  no  legitimate  or  good 
aspect  of  it  had  come  within  the  purview  of  the  inspired  writers,  that 
revealed  ethics  admitted  no  saving  clause  in  regard  to  it.  But  in 
point  of  fact,  so  vast  is  the  scope  of  the  Bible,  that  we  do  find  a  ref- 
erence to  this  subject  of  a  different  character  from  the  others.  This 
is  the  hint  given  us  of  the  relation  between  David  and  Jonathan. 
Saul's  coarse  abuse  of  his  son^^  may  imply  that  he  regarded  the  pair 
as  guilty  of  the  same  conduct  as  thousands  of  male  lovers,  especially 
comrades  in  arms,  in  ancient  Greece  and  the  Orient.  The  implication 
is  not  indeed  certain,  and  was  in  any  case  made  by  a  man  who  was 
not  weighing  his  words.  Besides,  David  and  Jonathan  were  both 
heterosexual,  and  had  families.  Yet  the  phrasing  of  II  Sam.  1 :  26 
puts  it  beyond  a  doubt  that  their  mutual  affection  was  erotic,  or,  to 
obviate  misunderstanding,  let  us  say  quasi-erotic,  in  its  intensity. 

We  seem  here  accordingly  to  recognize  a  homosexual  love  which, 
being  spiritual  in  character,  does  not,  so  far  as  it  remains  true  to 
that  character,  incur  Scriptural  condemnation  or  opposition.  Its 
analogue  in  the  normal  sex  life  is  that  spiritualized  eroticism  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  fairly  widely  attempted  in  early  Christianity, 
and  which,  though  regarded  by  general  Christian  opinion  with  anxiety 
and  even  suspicion,  on  account  of  the  failure  to  realize  the  theory 
of  it,  was  never  condemned  in  its  own  proper  character. 

The  modern  sexual  scientist  may  derive  encouragement,  in  his 
endeavor  to  make  a  discriminating  ethical  estimate  of  the  aspects  of 
the  homosexual  phenomenon,  from  this  reference  and  from  one  or  two 
other  Scriptural  allusions  to  intense  and  demonstrative  affection  be- 
tween men.  He  who  in  some  real  though  unfathomable  sense  bore 
the  sin  of  the  world,  and  who  is  not  ashamed  to  call  us  brethren,  did 
not  shrink  from  allowing  a  man  greatly  beloved  to  lean  upon  His 
breast.  We  Westerns,  in  our  narrower  humanity,  whatever  latitude 
we  may  allow  to  women  in  manifesting  their  mutual  affection,  are 
indisposed  to  tolerate  such  expressions  of  love  between  men;!'''  yet 
not  merely  a  priori  considerations,  but  scientifically  estimated  cases^^ 

15  Eph.  5  :  12. 

16  1  Sam.  20:30.     Q.  Hirschfeld,  op.  cit.,  p.  743. 

^'^  Cp.  Carpenter,  Das  Mittelgeschlecht,  p.  67  (qu.  by  Hirschfeld, 
op.  cit.,  p.  998). 

18  Hirschfeld,  op.  cit.,  p.  704;  Ellis  and  Moll,  Handbuch  der  Sex- 
ualwissenschaften.  p.  654. 

in 


290  SEXUAL    INVERSION. 

indicate  that  along  this  line  of  sublimated  spiritualized  affection  is  to 
be  found  one  of  the  solutions — the  only  solution  wholly  satisfying  to 
the  social  consciousness — of  the  problem  of  homosexuality. 

There  is  no  direct  Scriptural  suggestion  that  it  is  worth  while 
extending  the  ethical  estimate  of  homosexuality  beyond  the  province 
of  quasi-eroticism,  the  department  of  secondarily  sexual  feeling. 
Homosexual  action  of  a  definitely,  directly  sexual  kind,  is  in  the  Bible 
simply  labelled  bad;  and  there  is  no  direct  encouragement  to  undertake 
an  ethical  analysis  of  it,  no  overt  sanction  of  the  exercise  of  discrimi- 
nation in  regard  to  it.  The  religious-minded  scientist  may  reply  none 
the  less  that  he  takes  his  stand  on  the  general  broad  principle  of  justice, 
which  is  an  essential  part  of  our  conception  of  the  Divine;  and  that 
here  he  has  a  basis  broad  enough  for  his  scheme  of  discriminating  judg- 
ment. 

The  general  history  of  homosexuality  in  humanity  does 
not  present  us  with  a  uniform  social  condemnation  of  it. 
Primitive  communities  located  amid  a  defective  food  supply 
were  driven  to  adopt  various  expedients — female  infanticide, 
sterilization,  and  perhaps  homosexuality — by  which  the  increase 
of  population  could  be  checked,  while  the  gratification  of  the 
sexual  instinct  was  allowed.  But  it  does  not  seem  that  these 
expedients  were  common  among  primitive  peoples,  or  regarded 
with  favor  by  them;!^  or  to  put  the  matter  in  a  different  light, 
it  must  be  said  that  the  general  toleration  of  homosexuality  or 
other  birth-regulating  expedient  by  a  community,  as  a  means 
of  escape  from  the  necessity  of  increased  effort,  is  indicative 
of  a  deterioration  in  the  moral  purpose  of  that  community.  No 
healthy,  progressive  people  could  for  long  regard  homosexu- 
ality, even  in  its  most  favorable  aspects,  as  anything  but  an 
unsatisfying,  and  from  the  point  of  view  of  social  welfare,  un- 
safe method  of  developing  the  sex  life. 

Although  inversion  may,  in  the  case  of  some  abnormal 
individuals,  be  the  sexual  law  of  their  being,  yet  it  is  a 
law,  as  it  were,  wrongfully  imposed  upon  them,  an  alien  law 
that  violates  the  ordered  scheme  of  nature,  the  correlation  of 
the  anabolic  and  katabolic  principles  manifested  in  the  two 


19  See   Westermarck's   discussion  of   infanticide,   Hum.   Mar.,   pp. 
311fif. 


SEXUAL   INVERSION.  291 

sexes,  a  law  against  which  they,  as  units  in  the  system  of  crea- 
tion, are  morally  bound  to  rebel. -^  No  student  of  sex  would 
contend  that  a  person  with  an  active  or  a  passive  algolagnic 
instinct  ought  to  accept  those  abnormalities  and  allow  them  to 
develop.  It  is  his  part  to  combat  and  suppress  such  tendencies, 
even  at  the  cost  of  severe  inward  strife  and  suffering.  That 
some  persons,  inverts  by  nature  but  none  the  less  possessed  of 
high  principles  and  strong  religious  convictions,  accept  and 
act  upon,  this  view  of  their  abnormality,  appears  from  certain 
of  the  cases  cited  by  Havelock  Ellis.-'^"  Their  struggle  with 
their  besetting  homosexual  inclinations  may  either  result  in  a 
redirection  of  the  sexual  instinct  into  its  normal  channel,  or  it 
may  have  a  still  nobler  issue,  the  moral  purification  of  their 
lives  by  the  effort  of  continued  self-sacrifice. 

Thus,  finally,  before  concluding  our  consideration  of  the 
problems  connected  with  sexual  inversion,  we  have  to  return 
to  a  confessedly  imperfect  and  from  some  points  of  view  in- 
equitable standpoint — the  standpoint  of  practical  social  admin- 
istration. 

It  is  impossible,  in  discussing  homosexuality,  to  confine 
ourselves  to  the  consideration  of  true  inversion.  The  latter 
phenomenon  by  no  means  covers  the  whole  ground.  Even  if 
we  accept  the  theory  of  psychosexual  hermaphroditism,  the 
indifferent  inclination  in  the  same  subject  of  the  sexual  in- 
stinct to  either  sex,  that  does  not  eliminate  the  idea  of  moral 
responsibility   from   the   question.- 1      Want   of   principle,   the 


20  Q.  the  remark  of  Moll  (S.  and  K.,  op.  cit.,  ii,  p.  990)  :  "The 
circumstance  that  nature  must  have  had  some  definite  purpose  in  view 
when  creating  homosexuality  does  not  exclude  the  notion  of  its  mor- 
bid character." 

20"  Studies,  Sexual  Inversion,  pp.  57,  198ff. 

21  Moll  calls  attention  to  less  established  and  persistent  forms  of 
psychosexual  hermaphroditism,  maintaining  that  the  differentiation  of 
the  sexual  desire  is  not  infrequently  postponed  in  normal  individuals, 
till  some  years  after  puberty  has  manifested  itself  (Senator  and  Kami- 
ner,  op.  cit.,  p.  1051).  In  such  cases  patience  may  have  to  be  exercised 
in  regard  to  marriage  ;  but  right  knowledge,  good  companionship,  and, 


292  SEXUAL  INVERSION. 

reckless  desire  to  make  a  horrid  experiment,  account  for  many- 
cases  of  homosexual  connection.22 

There  is  a  self-recorded  case  given  in  the  second  edition  of 
Havelock  EUis's  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex,  vol.  iii,  pp.  306ff., 
hist,  xiii,  which  claims  our  attention  at  this  point.  It  begins  with  a  very 
imperfect  and  confused  estimate  of  inherited  tendencies,  the  author 
contradicting  himself  within  five  lines,  first  saying  that  he  knows  of 
no  abnormality  among  his  relations,  and  then  announcing  that  his 
brother  is  abnormal.  Education  and  environment  appear  to  have  been 
unusually  faulty,  both  negatively  and  positively,  from;  a  sexual  point 
of  view;  though  there  are  hints  of  higher  factors  which  may  have 
left  in  the  subconsciousness  impressions  as  enduring  as  the  wound  in- 
flicted in  a  fit  of  remorse,  of  which  the  author  speaks. 

The  author  boasts  that  he  is  a  "militant  rationalist,"  employing 
the  latter  tefm  evidently  in  the  debased  popular  sense  equivalent  to 
"unbeliever  in  religion."  In  his  own  person  he  illustrates  to  the  full 
the  defeat  of  the  cause  he  has  espoused,  the  failure  of  his  intellectual 
system  as  an  ancillary  in  the  world-process.  I  have  not  yet  come 
across  a  completer  example  of  the  general  all-round  dissolution  of  the 
human  sexual  instinct.  The  author  sums  up  his  sexual  condition  in 
words  which  I  present  in  such  Latin  as  I  can  command : — "Equidem 
cum  amica  quadam  patricise  gentis,  id  quod  sane  facile  crederes,  liben- 
tius  sane  cubarem.  Quodsi  talis  abesset,  turn  nempe  alia  qualibet,  a 
domina  patricia  nescio  qua  quam  antehac  non  amavissem,  usque  ad 
omne  genus  scortorum,  promptissime  uterer.  Etenim  viris,  pueris, 
animalibus,  melonibus,  libidinem  meam  explere,  vel  etiam  in  solitudine 
masturbari  vellem.  Nee  mihi  displiceret,  fateor,  cum  sorore  mea  vel 
cum  alia  nescio  qua  e  cognatis  meis  concubare." 

And  the  question  arises  whether,  if  the  homosexual  act 
in  sc  is  made  unpunishable,  collective  opinion  on  the  subject 


above  all,  sound  moral  principle  and  sustained  moral  effort,  will  help 
to  guide  the  wavering  desire  into  the  normal  direction. 

22  It  is  assuredly  true  of  some  cases  that  the  intercourse  of  men 
with  men  or  of  women  with  women  is  "a  bold  attempt,  originally  due 
to  unbridled  lust"  (Plato,  Laws,  636d,  Jowett's  tr.).  With  modifica- 
tions, this  statement  applies  to  the  young.  Westermarck  (Moral  Ideas, 
vol.  ii,  p.  468)  thinks  that  homosexual  practices  in  early  youth  have 
a  lasting  effect  on  the  sexual  instinct.  A  Roman  priest  informed  me 
that,  in  his  experience,  the  confessional  gave  the  same  witness.  Cp. 
p.  59  of  this  volume,  and  Ellis  and  Moll,  Handbuch  der  Sexualwissen- 
schaften,  p.  652. 


SEXUAL   INVERSION.  293 

may  not  waver.  The  experience  of  nations  which  have  already 
made  this  readjustment  of  criminal  law  is  not  conclusive  on 
this  point.  It  has  been  maintained  that  France  compares 
favorably  with  other  countries  in  regard  of  the  dififusion  of 
homosexual  practices ;  a  fact  which  speaks  for  toleration,  inas- 
much as  social  antipathy  to  homosexuality  has,  presumably,  at 
least  not  been  weakened  in  France  by  the  attitude  of  the  law. 
Still,  France's  superiority  is  not  proved.  In  theory  the  French 
law,  by  keeping  a  tight  hold  on  the  by-processes  of  homosexual- 
ity, is  able  to  offer  a  sufficient  check  to  the  growth  of  the 
phenomenon.  But  the  fact  that  such  events  as  the  urnings' 
balls  mentioned  by  Hirschfeld^s  can  take  place  in  France, 
causes  an  uneasy  suspicion  of  a  certain  somnolence  in  that 
public  opinion  without  which  laws  cannot  be  effectively  ad- 
ministered. Among  some  sections  of  the  lower  classes  homo- 
sexuality is  said  to  be  regarded  with  apathy.--* 

Viewed  in  connection  with  the  general  scheme  of  sex 
evolution,  homosexuality — unless  in  its  wholly  psychic  or 
spiritualized  aspect — is  reactionary  and  retardative.-^  It 
harks  back  to  immature,  indeterminate  stages  of  sexual  evolu- 
tions. The  sexual  nature,  homosexually  developed,  has  not 
come  to  its  fullness.  It  has  not  conformed  to  those  conditions 
which  secure  for  it,  heterosexually  developed,  a  place  of  honor 
as  a  beneficial  factor  in  evolution.  The  trouble  is  not  merely 
that  homosexuality  is  unprocreative.  In  that  connection  it 
might  be  claimed  that  homosexuality  is  on  the  same  footing 
as  neomalthusianism ;  though  indeed  the  claim  could  not  be 
admitted,  for  homosexuality  is  capable  of  no  partial  adjust- 
ment to  procreation,  as  neomalthusianism  is. 

But  more  than  this,  homosexuality  is  esthetically  wrong. 
Whatever  may  be  said  about  the  subjectivity  of  sexual  attrac- 
tions and  repulsions,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  majority  of  the 


23  Hirschfeld,  op.  cit.,  p.  687. 

24  H.  Ellis,  Studies,  vol.  ii  (vol.  i,  1st  ed.),  p.  211. 

25  Bolsche,  qu.  by  Hirschfeld,  op.  cit.,  p.  632;  cp.  Ellis  and  Moll, 
Handbuch  der  Sexualwissenschaften,  p.  654. 


294  SEXUAL    INVERSION. 

methods  of  homosexual  action,  objectively  considered,  are 
irredeemably  disgusting.^^  I  cannot  subscribe  to  the  opinion 
of  those  who  think  that  this  aspect  of  the  matter  has  no 
social  interest.  Society,  humanity,  creation,  have  a  solidarity 
which  makes  the  elimination  of  objectionable  phenomena  a 
desideratum.26' 

And  even  supposing  it  possible  to  purify  homosexuality  of 
these  worst  phenomena,  a  difficulty — one  of  the  first  magnitude 
— to  its  being  tolerated  as  a  thing  socially  indifferent  still  re- 
mains. It  seems  impossible  to  lay  down  limiting  conditions, 
such  as  would  be  satisfactory  from  the  social  point  of  view,  to 
homosexual  activity.  For  if  the  homosexual  act  in  se  is  made 
unpunishable,  what  degree  of  freedom  is  to  be  given  the  invert 
in  relation  to  his  peculiar  need  ?  He  must  not  use  violence ; 
must  not  outrage  public  decency ;  must  not  seduce  a  minor. 
But  may  he  (or  she-") — these  conditions  being  observed — go 
up  and  down  in  society,  seeking  a  male  (or  female)  partner 
just  as  normal  people  choose  partners  heterosexually  ?  It  is 
not  to  be  assumed  or  expected  that  the  invert  will  necessarily 
seek  the  partnership  of  some  one  whose  sexual  nature  is  con- 
stituted similarly  to  his  own.  Analogously  with  the  normal, 
the  inverted  instinct  in  many  cases  requires  for  its  full  satis- 
faction to  be  put  in  touch  with  conditions  of  dissimilarity,  with 
the  result  that  the  objects  to  which  it  is  drawn  are  frequently, 
or  usually,  normal  heterosexual  types.  The  problems  of  selec- 
tion are  by  no  means  fully  solved  by  the  negative  regulations 


26  Hirschfeld,  {op.  cit.,  pp.  286ff.)  describes  four  forms,  of  which 
one  only  approximates  to  normal  sexual  action,  and  that  one  is  rela- 
tively uncommon, — a  proof  of  the  pathological  and  depraved  character 
of  the  homosexual  phenomenon  viewed  as  a  whole. 

26a  See  Addendum  at  end  of  chapter. 

^"^  Cp.  Forel,  op.  cit.,  p.  258.  England  and  some  other  countries 
do  not  now  punish  homosexuality  in  women ;  but  this  leniency  can 
hardly  be  due  to  a  belief  in  the  absence  of  the  phenomenon  among 
them.  If  it  is  so  grounded,  it  is  risky;  for  homosexual  women  do 
exist,  and  there  are  some  very  licentious  ones.  In  the  poet  Dryden's 
time,  women  were  liable  to  the  death  penalty  for  this  offense. 


SEXUAL   INVERSION.  295 

associated  with  the  legal  ignoring  of  homosexuality  in  itself. 
Still  less  does  that  legal  attitude  assist  the  realization  of  the 
idea  which  dominates  heterosexual  morals,  the  idea  of  mutual 
responsibility.  If  all  the  other  objections  to  homosexuality 
were  removed  or  waived,  how  could  the  rights  of  partners  in 
relation  to  each  other  be  safeguarded  ?  It  is  difficult  to  see 
how  the  legal  ban  can  safely  be  taken  ofif  the  homosexual  act, 
or  any  form  or  modus  of  it,  in  se,  unless  the  legislature  goes 
the  further  logical  step  of  regulating  in  some  way  abnormal 
sexual  union ;  as  it  has  done,  throughout  human  history,  in  the 
case  of  the  normal  union.  Can  society,  in  its  sympathy  with 
the  congenital  invert,  go  the  length  of  recognizing  a  formal 
compact  for  homosexuals?  That  step  has  been  hinted  at  in  at 
least  one  notable  work  on  sex.^s  More  recently,  Hirschfeld 
has  sketched  the  history  of  homosexual  compacts.-^  Even  if 
we  leave  out  of  account  such  as  are  mere  impudent  caricatures 
of  marriage,  of  which  classical  paganism  affords  examples,  and 
confine  our  attention  to  such  as  have  a  basis  of  genuine  feeling, 
they  are  socially  unsatisfactory  and  abortive.  They  embody 
no  means  of  rendering  the  standard  of  obligation  objective. 
Unlike  marriage,  such  compacts  contain  no  positive  element  of 
which  legal  theory  can  take  cognizance,  no  definitive  sexual 
rights  which  the  law  can  endeavor  to  enforce.  There  is  no 
influence,  save  his  own  honor  and  good  principle, — I  am  far 
from  denying  the  possible  sufficiency  of  these  in  particular 
cases, 30 — capable  of  restraining  the  invert  from  acquiring  and 
casting  off  successive  partners,  so  long  as  he  does  not  infringe 
the  conditions  of  the  revised  criminal  code. 

It  is  also  highly  undesirable  that  homosexuals  should  lose 
their  instinctive-"^  moral  disapproval  of  their  own  sexual  in- 
clination, and  justify  themselves  to  the  extent  of  giving  up  the 
struggle  with  it,  as  they  tend  to  do  in  the  countries  which  have 


28  Ford,  op.  cit.,  p.  477  (ed.  10,  p.  562). 

29  Hirschfeld,  op.  cit.,  pp.  700ff. 

30  Q.  Hirschfeld,  op.  cit.,  p.  704. 

31  M,  p.  811. 


296  SEXUAL   INVERSION. 

adopted  toleration. ^2  Further,  a  perfect  example  of  a  class 
of  cases  presenting  no  specific  sexual  abnormality,  such  as 
might  develop  independently  or  in  spite  of  the  subject's  will, 
has  been  adduced  above.  This  type  does  not  allege  that  he  can 
find  sexual  gratification  only  in  abnormal  ways.  There  is  ex- 
hibited in  such  cases  simply  the  loss  of,  or  perhaps  rather  a 
failure  to  develop,  any  and  every  inhibitory  principle  in  the 
sex  life. 

Now,  although  the  higher  department  of  ethics,  where  we 
have  to  deal  with  supramundane  judgments  and  issues,  may 
furnish  considerations  which  restrain  judgment  even  on  such 
a  class  of  offenders,  the  collective  practical  moral  sense  which 
governs  society's  everyday  life  cannot  afford  to  regard  them, 
with  indifference.  It  would  be  the  height  of  social  unwisdom 
were  modern  legislatures  to  forego  their  right  of  watching 
against  and  repressing  such  entirely  impudent  impurity  as  is 
here  manifested.  It  is  largely  the  existence  of  this  class  which 
renders  the  sympathetic  social  handling  of  the  homosexual 
question  so  difficult. 

But  while,  for  the  reasons  just  given,  the  principle  of  con- 
demnation per  se  should  be  retained  in  legislation  on  homosex- 
uality, the  light  thrown  by  science  on  its  causation  assuredly 
justifies  many  modifications  in  the  application  of  this  principle. 
If  it  is  inexpedient  to  divert  altogether  the  law's  regard  from 
the  abnormal  detumescent  act  to  its  surroundings,  this  is  not 
to  say  that  a  fresh  evaluation  of  the  circumstances  of  a  homo- 
sexual charge  ought  not  to  be  made.  The  measure  of  the 
social  condemnation  should  be  largely  determined  by  reference 
to  the  circumstances  of  the  act.  Certainly,  too,  a  fresh  criminal 
evaluation  of  the  forms  of  homosexual  action  ought  to  be 
made. 32  Some  legislatures  make  only  one  form  punishable : 
this  antagonism  to  homosexuality  is  perhaps  too  restricted.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  a  mistake  to  visit  all  the  forms  with  the 
same  severity,  or  to  stretch  the  interpretation  of  criminal  ab- 


32  Ellis  and  Moll,  op.  cit.,  p.  654 

33  See  Hirschfeld,  op.  cit.,  pp.  8 


pp.  821  ff. 


SEXUAL   INVERSION.  297 

normality  too  wide.     Carpzov  and  others  have  even  tried  to 
make  it  comprehend  simple  masturbation. 

A  homosexual  act,  where  there  is  proof  that  it  arose  in  a 
condition  of  congenital  sexual  inversion,  and  when  its  criminal- 
ity has  not  been  aggravated,  should  be  regarded,  not  indeed  as 
unpunishable,  yet  not  on  the  other  hand  as  socially  unpardon- 
able. The  legal  penalty  should  be  neither  so  light  as  to  sug- 
gest the  conclusion  that  the  abnormal  act  is  unimportant,  nor 
so  heavy  as  to  imply  that  in  all  cases  the  act  is  uniformly  rep- 
rehensible. Where  it  is  proved  that  hereditary  influences  have 
powerfully  contributed  to  diminish  the  offender's  responsibility 
for  his  act,  the  application  of  legal  measures  to  his  case  should 
be  made  in  a  spirit  sympathetic  rather  than  otherwise,  should 
be  designed  to  effect  the  restoration  of  what  is  wanting,  the 
control  of  what  is  errant,  the  strengthening  of  what  is  weak, 
in  his  sexual  nature ;  and  should  not  merely  aim  at  expressing 
by  heavy  sentences  the  disgust  felt — however  rightly  felt — by 
the  sexually  normal  community.  Recognizing  the  dvo/Ata  of  such 
occurrences,  let  the  community  try  other  means  than  the  curse, 
of  repressing,  it  may  be  of  abolishing,  that  dvo/xta.  In  this  con- 
nection especially,  a  true  penology  must  comprise  the  employ- 
ment of  all  such  sedative  and  curative  means  as  medical  science, 
in  alliance  with  the  psychical  and  the  moral  sciences,  can  sug- 
gest or  can  discover.  It  is  perhaps  on  the  psychical  side,  from 
the  development  of  the  various  methods  of  suggestion,  that  the 
least  painful  remedies  and  the  best  results  are  to  be  hoped  for. 
But  each  one  of  such  remedial  measures  requires  for  its  de- 
velopment such  a  detailed  and  extended  study  as  only  special- 
ists can  undertake.34 

Students  of  this  province  of  sexual  science  unanimously 
emphasize  the  social  danger  of  blackmail  (Erpressung)  ;  this 
danger,  in  fact,  constitutes  one  of  the  strongest  reasons  for 
advocating  the  non-penalization  of  the  homosexual  act  in  se. 


34  Hirschfeld's    work    contains    a    full    resume   and    discussion    of 
these  methods. 


298  SEXUAL  INVERSION. 

The  present  writer,  who  has  found  himself  unable  to  go  the 
full  length  of  this  advocacy,  ventures  to  think  none  the  less  that 
such  considerations  as  he  has  advanced,  and  such  suggestions 
toward  the  modification  of  the  principle  of  punishment  as  he 
has  made,  will  help  toward  a  clearer  understanding  of  the 
ethics  of  homosexuality,  and  will  thereby  render  the  crimi- 
nality of  blackmailing  darker  than  heretofore  in  comparison 
with  that  of  its  subject,  and  by  consequence  more  heavily 
punishable  and  more  dangerous  to  attempt. 

We  have  always  to  recognize  the  possibility  above  referred 
to,  that  an  intimacy  between  persons  of  the  same  sex  may  be 
quasi-erotic.  It  may  be  based  on  a  very  intense  and  spiritual- 
ized afifection.  It  may  admit  caresses  and  demonstrative  ex- 
pression; and  yet  succeed  in  excluding  primary  sexual  action. 
Such  an  intimacy  may  be  supplying  the  soul-needs  of  two  per- 
sons, one  of  them  abnormally  constituted,  without  injuring  the 
moral  life  of  either.  It  is  well  to  leave  room  for  this  develop- 
ment ;  and  it  is  more  socially  useful,  as  well  as  pleasanter,  to 
think  and  speak  with  honor  of  such  inverts  as  successfully 
order  their  sex  lives  on  this  theory,  than  to  calculate  the  maxi- 
mum of  punishment  for  the  failures  of  those  who  have  tried, 
but  unsuccessfully,  to  do  likewise.  Punished  such  failures, — 
that  is,  though  hesitatingly  and  regretfully,  the  present  writer's 
conclusion, — even  such  failures  should  continue  to  be;  but  as- 
suredly with  the  minimum  of  punishment. 

To  passive  algolagnia  reference  has  already  been  made  in 
this  essay.  It  would  seem  to  be  in  highly  organized  subjects, 
persons  of  sensitive  nature,  emotional  keenness,  and  perhaps,  in 
addition,  of  unusual  intellectual  capacity,  that  this  misdirection 
of  the  sexual  instinct  generally  appears.  It  has  various  forms ; 
the  subjects  of  it  associate  the  idea  of  sexual  excitement  not 
only  with  the  imagined  infliction  upon  themselves  of  coarse  and 
obscene  indignities,  but  also,  by  a  more  sentimental  form  of 
the  abnormality,  with  refined  humiliations  suffered  at  the 
hands  of  agents  for  whom  they  entertain  exalted  feelings  of 
respect  and  admiration.     Where  undoubtedly  congenital,  pas- 


ALGOLAGNIA— MASOCHISM.  299 

sive  algolagnia  cannot  perhaps  be  eliminated  from  the  con- 
sciousness ;  but  it  may  be  checked  and  curbed  in  its  growth  by 
the  will,  whenever  the  will  has  been  stimulated  to  desire  a  pure 
and  normal  sex  life.^^  The  algolagniac  should  by  an  effort  of 
will  refuse  himself  indulgence  in  the  imaginations  which  ap- 
peal most  strongly  to  his  sexual  emotions.  He  must  force 
himself  to  look  squarely  at  the  facts  of  the  matter,  assuring 
himself  that  the  pictures  which  his  imagination  involuntarily 
presents  are  impossible  of  realization,  except  in  the  artificial 
environment  of  a  brothel  ;^6  recognizing  the  dangers  attending 
the  unchecked  development  of  algolagnic  instinct,  its  depraving 
influence  not  only  upon  the  sexual  nature,  but  upon  the  gen- 
eral fiber  of  the  moral  being;  and  its  possible  issue  in  sexual 
inversion.  It  is  only  in  extreme  cases  that  algolagnic  visions 
can  be  said  to  be  necessary  to  the  algolagniac  for  the  rousing 
of  his  sexual  system ;  for  that  may  become  active  as  a  result  of 
the  brain  movements  which  form  a  sufficient  stimulus  for  the 
normal  individual.  The  state  of  the  case  is  rather  that  the 
algolagnic  tendency  is  the  exaggeration  of  one  psychical  ele- 
ment in  the  complex  of  sexual  feelings;  a  condition  which, 
should  the  will  habitually  consent  to  the  pressure  thus  imposed, 
is  readily  adopted  by  the  sexual  system  as  its  favorite  excita- 
tion, to  the  relative  exclusion  of  normal  and  healthy  incite- 
ments. 

It  seems  impertinent  to  speak  of  the  control  of  the  sexual 
instinct,  unless  the  moralist  is  prepared  to  show  men  with 
something  of  precision  what  they  have  to  aim  at  controlling. 
For  the  sexual  instinct  is  a  very  Nereus.  Bound  in  one  form, 
it  appears  in  another.    Let  it  be  known  what  an  algolagnic  in- 


3o  Algolagniacs  who  give  themselves  up  to  their  inclination  have 
to  arrange  their  situations  to  order  (Cp.  H.  Ellis,  Studies,  vi,  p.  298; 
Bloch,  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time,  pp.  581ff.). 

36  Cp.  Ellis,  Studies,  vol.  iv,  p.  228,  where  a  personal  narrative  is 
given;  and  the  remarks  of  Moll  on  the  possibilities  of  self-education 
and  discipline  in  relation  to  sexual  perversion  (Senator  and  Kaminer, 
o/y.  cit.,  vol.  ii,  p.  1028). 


300  ALGOLAGNIA— SADISM. 

stinct  is ;  and  he  whose  sexual  nature  is  affected  with  this  taint 
will  know  what  battle  he  has  to  fight,  and  may  discover  what 
are  the  most  effective  methods  of  fighting. 

From  passive  algolagnia,  sexuality  associated  with  and 
aroused  by  the  idea  of  injuries,  etc.,  which  the  subject  pictures 
as  inflicted  upon  himself,  we  pass  to  its  opposite,  active  algolag- 
nia, i.e.,  sexuality  associated  with  the  idea  of  effort  and  vio- 
lence, especially  violence  inflicted  by  the  subject  himself.  The 
sight  of  any  great  display  of  muscular  effort,  as  a  team  of 
horses  dragging  a  heavy  load  uphill;  the  sight  of  bloodshed,  as 
in  a  battle  scene ;  the  thought  of  striking,  biting,  or  maiming  the 
object  toward  which  the  sexual  desire  is  directed — these  are 
the  stimuli,  weird  and  terrible  as  it  may  seem  to  the  normal 
individual,  which  set  in  motion  this  strange  development  of  the 
sexual  instinct.  Probably  there  must  always  be  a  latent  predis- 
position to  active  algolagnia  in  the  subject  of  it;  but  it  would 
seem  that  certain  exceptional  circumstances,  such  as  the  sack 
of  a  town  in  wartime  and  the  consequent  exposure  of  helpless 
women  to  unbridled  license,  may  produce  a  manifestation  of 
active  algolagnia  in  minds  v/hich  hitherto  had  not  consciously 
experienced  any  algolagnic  tendency.-"'"  Moreover,  the  fact 
that  in  some  cases  it  has  not  made  its  appearance  as  an  active 
principle  till  relatively  late  in  life,  shows  that,  as  was  seen  in 
regard  to  passive  algolagnia,  the  actively  algolagnic  inclination 
may  be  held  in  check  and  its  development  prevented  by  the 
higher  forces  of  the  organism. 

Masturbation  would  not  be  an  efficient  cause  of  active  algo- 


^"^  Cp.  Forel,  op.  cit.  (ed.  10),  p.  266.  The  relative  claims  of 
heredity  and  environment  in  the  causation  of  sexual  perversions  have 
been  much  discussed.  Gemelli  thinks  that  while  a  homosexual  tendency 
may  be  acquired,  the  sadistic,  masochistic,  and  one  or  two  other  de- 
generate tendencies  are  always  congenital  (op.  cit.,  pp.  57ff.,  204n.) 
Havelock  Ellis  shows  (Studies,  iii,  pp.  102ff.  Cp.  Ellis  and  Moll,  Hand- 
buch.  p.  639.)  that  the  algolagnic  tendencies  are  but  intensified  mani- 
festations of  indispensable  elements  of  sexual  emotion.  Moll  remarks 
on  the  occurrence,  sometimes  extremely  sudden,  of  periodic  and  epi- 
sodic manifestations  of  a  perverted  tendency  (op.  cit.,  pp.  1025ff.). 


ALGOLAGNIA— SADISM.  301 

lagnia ;  but  where  the  algolagnic  predisposition  already  existed, 
masturbation  would  no  doubt  prove  a  considerable  factor  in  its 
intensification.  On  the  other  hand,  Moll  considers  that  mas- 
turbation is  in  some  cases  an  indication  of  underlying  sexual 
perversity,  rather  than  a  cause  of  such  perversity  {op.  cit.,  p. 
992). 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  a  person  whose  sexual  in- 
stinct is  thus  perverted  is  devoid  of  moral  responsibility.  His 
conscience  and  will,  if  sufficiently  enlightened,  may  struggle  to 
repress  and  ultimately  lessen  the  power  of  the  anomalous  sex- 
ual activity.  Where  this  moral  effort  is  not  made,  and  the  algo- 
lagnic tendency  is  allowed  by  ignorance  or  want  of  principle  to 
grow  unchecked,  there  is  no  saying  to  what  kind  of  catastrophe 
it  may  not  eventually  lead  the  unhappy  subject  of  it.  The  re- 
action following  on  sexual  gratification,  which,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  takes  on  a  variety  of  forms,  may  induce  in  the 
algolagniac  a  condition  of  erotic  intoxication ;  so  that  the  feeble 
and  undeveloped  moral  sense  is  no  longer  capable  of  stemming 
the  overpowering  tide  of  unclean  and  monstrous  passion.  Thus, 
although  the  algolagniac  is  not  mad  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
word,  he  may  become  so,  as  the  temporary  result  of  the  or- 
gasm; and  there  may  eventuate  one  of  the  fearful  murders — 
mutilation  and  butchery  following  on  outrage — which  have 
their  origin  in  this  terrible  impulse. 

Hence  the  treatment  of  active  algolagnia  belongs  in  part  to 
the  domain  of  penology.  Either  society  must  insist  on  the  algo- 
lagniac himself  acquiring  control  over  his  abnormal  inclination ; 
or  where  that  is  impracticable,  society  must  itself  exercise  that 
control.  When  the  algolagniac  has  proceeded  to  the  length  of 
outrage  and  murder,  it  is  indeed  impossible,  in  the  region  of 
moral  judgments,  to  view  his  conduct  with  the  same  measure  of 
severity  as  would  be  requisite  in  the  case  of  a  similar  action  per- 
formed by  a  person  whose  sexual  instinct  was  not  complicated 
by  any  such  tendency.  But  human  laws  cannot  operate  in  the 
region  of  final  moral  judgments.  Society  has  to  form:  and  ad- 
minister such  laws  as  will  in  practice  best  fulfill  the  primary 


302  ALGOLAGNIA— SADISM. 

purpose  of  its  own  protection.  In  such  a  matter  as  an  algo- 
lagnic  crime,  of  which  aggression  and  violence  are  the  determin- 
ing factors,  the  redemption  of  the  individual  can  only  be 
considered  as  a  secondary  question.  At  present  the  law  pro- 
ceeds in  regards  to  algolagnic  murders  on  the  assumption  that 
the  algolagniac  is  responsible  with  a  responsibility  on  a  par  with 
that  of  the  ordinary  individual ;  and  although  only  the  first  part 
of  this  assumption  is  true,  yet  it  would  be  unsafe  to  urge  that 
the  death  penalty  should  be  abolished  in  connection  with  these 
cases.  A  long  term  of  imprisonment  and  supervision,  accom- 
panied by  sterilization,  might  meet  some  cases,  but  it  is  not 
certain  that  sterilization,  although  it  would  prevent  the  algo- 
lagniac propagating  his  degenerate  kind,  would  eliminate  the 
abnormal  tendency  from  his  own  consciousness.  The  penology 
of  the  future  will  probably  deal  more  sympathetically,  and  at 
the  same  time  more  effectively,  with  algolagnic  crimes  and 
criminal  attempts. 

The  analysis  of  the  algolagnic  impulse  made  by  H.  Ellis-^® 
suggests  that  the  presence  even  of  active  algolagnia  does  not 
necessarily  imply  a  general  and  complete  deterioration  of  char- 
acter ;  and  it  is  questioned  whether  or  in  what  degree  conscious 
cruelty  can  be  attributed  to  the  subject  of  this  condition. so 
Viewed  from  a  religious  standpoint,  in  connection  with  the 
Christian  behef  in  a  moral  judgment,  this  analysis  is  of  pro- 
found interest  and  of  far-reaching  significance;  but  to  esti- 
mate properly  its  ethical  value  would  require  not  merely  a  first- 
hand observation  of  algolagnic  phenomena,  but  a  comparative 
study  of  the  forms  and  motives  of  cruelty  in  other  connec- 
tions than  the  sexual.  The  tendency  to  cruelty  is  a  morbid  de- 
velopment accruing  to  fundamental  instincts;  and  all  cruelty 
derives  its  impulse  from  what  may  be  described  as  an  emotional 
interest  of  some  kind  in  pain,  the  desire  to  stimulate  and  sub- 
sequently to  gratify  some  passion.  Suetonius  ascribes  to  Nero 
cruelties  perpetrated  for  his  amusement.     These  were  due  to 


Studies,  iii.  p.  126ff.  (ed.  2,  pp.  159ff.). 
Ellis  and  Moll,  Handbuch,  pp.  640f. 


38 

39  Ellis  an 


ALGOLAGNIA— SADISM,     j  303 

a  morbid  development  of  the  instinctive  craving  for  amusement 
more  or  less  present  in  all  minds.  Nero's  gaiety  was  most 
readily  aroused  and  gratified  by  the  sight  of  pain  in  others; 
just  as  the  active  algolagniac's  sexual  instinct  responds  to  the 
same  stimulus. 

How  far  the  algolagniac  is  capable  of  reaHzing  the  in- 
flicted pain,  of  discerning  his  own  morbidity,  and  so  of  direct- 
ing his  will-power  to  the  suppression  of  it,  are  questions  the 
answer  to  which  will  affect  the  charge  of  conscious  cruelty. 
Tarnowsky,  recognizing  the  intermingling  of  love  and  savagery 
in  the  phenomena  of  active  algolagnia,  yet  appears  to  hold  the 
algolagniac  more  or  less  responsible  for  cruelty.'*^  Krafft- 
Ebing-^i  refers  to  efforts  made  by  algolagniacs  to  control  their 
perversity,  justifying  the  inference  that  the  algolagniac's  sub- 
jective view  of  his  actions,  however  vitiated  it  may  be — and 
there  is  probably,  as  already  observed,  always  a  congenital  de- 
fect with  this  form  of  perversion — does  not  wholly  absolve  him 
from  moral  guilt  if  the  controlling  effort  is  not  made. 

However  this  may  be,  our  study  of  active  algolagnia  leads, 
finally,  to  the  general  conclusion  that  no  collective  social  duty  is 
more  imperative  than  the  fight  with  cruelty.  Evolutionary 
progress,  so  far  as  we  know,  involves  suffering;  and  some 
writers — an  instance  is  given  in  Bloch's  Sexual  Life  of  Our 
Time'*^ — infer  that  cruelty  is  justified.  This  is  a  crazy  deduc- 
tion. The  principle  to  be  applied  in  self-conscious  human  evo- 
lution— when,  that  is,  the  process  has  reached  the  stage  at 
which  man  can  consciously  influence  it — is  to  produce  the 
maximum  of  progress,  as  discerned  by  the  most  educated  and 
manifoldly  developed  faculty  of  estimation,  with  the  minimum 
of  suffering.  This  principle  calls  for  the  suppression  of  every 
needless  infliction  of  pain ;  of  all  cruel  spectacles  that  appeal  to 
the  morbid  sadistic  interest  in  pain.  It  is  with  reason  believed 
that  the  public  and  private  cruelties  of  the  social  life  of  pagan 


40  L'Instinct  Sexuel,  p.  248. 

4^  Psychopathia  Sexualis,  E.  tr.,  7th  ed.,  p.  6L 

42  E.  tr.,  pp.  587ff. 


304  OTHER   FORMS    OF    PERVERSION. 

Rome'*3  intensified  sadistic  passion ;  and  we  know  that  the 
torturing  of  birds  and  animals  has  the  same  psychological  con- 
nection. Bull-fighting  has  been  condemned  by  Fere,  Ray 
Lankester,  and  others  on  this  ground. ^^  Cock-fighting  is 
similarly  bad;  such  cases  as  the  "monsieur  aux  poules"  men- 
tioned by  Fere,  or  the  young  man  who  brought  pigeons  to  a 
brothel  to  see  their  necks  wrung  by  prostitutes, ^^  are  extreme 
instances  of  the  awakening  of  sexual  excitement  at  the  sight  of 
the  sufferings  of  birds.  Wanton  cruelties,  in  fact,  are  sexually 
dangerous,  in  addition  to  all  the  other  reasons  for  condemning 
them.  It  may,  however,  be  impracticable  to  push  humanity  to 
extreme  lengths.  Forms  of  sport  that  do  the  killing  quickly 
are  less  open  to  objection,  at  any  rate  in  connection  with 
algolagnia. 

Yet  other  forms  of  the  dissolution  of  the  sexual  instinct 
exist,  besides  those  which  we  have  already  considered.  Incest 
may  conveniently  head  the  list ;  since,  although  not  strictly 
speaking  pathological,  it  is,  from  the  sociological  point  of  view, 
one  of  the  phenomena  of  sexual  abnormality.  Of  a  more 
definitively  perverted  character  are :  ( 1 )  Fetichism, — eroticism 
concentrated  upon  some  inanimate  object,  as  an  article  of  cloth- 
ing or  a  lock  of  hair;  hair-cutting  assaults  on  girls,  such  as 
are  occasionally  recorded  in  the  papers,  are  probably  due  to 
this  motive.  (2)  Exhibitionism, — the  impulse  to  exhibit  the 
person  indecently.  (3)  Narcissism, — a  kind  of  autoerotic  self- 
admiration  ;  and  yet  more  repellent  forms,  such  as  bestiality, 
necrophily,  and  parodoxy,  or  sexuality  appearing  at  an  abnor- 
mal age,  viz.,  in  extreme  youth  or  in  advanced  age,  and  direct- 
ing itself  by  an  inverse  variation  toward  persons  correspond- 


43  Friedlander,  Darstellungen  aus  cler  Sittengeschichte  Roms.,  vol. 
i,  p.  261.  So  too  sadism,  fanned  by  superstition  and  religious  fanati- 
cism, was  one  of  the  contributing  causes  of  the  frightful  Witchmania. 
(Hirschfeld,  in  Die  Neue  Gen.,  Jahrg.  7,  Heft  10,  S.  417;  Bloch,  The 
Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time,  p.  120;  id.,  Die  Prostitution,  Bd.  i,  pp.  647ff.) 

-14  Bloch,  Sexual  Life,  p.  563. 

43  H.  Ellis,  Studies,  vi,  p.  298. 


OTHER   FORMS   OF   PERVERSION.  305 

ingly  distant  from  the  subject  in  age.  The  determining  factor 
in  these  latter  cravings  is  in  fact  the  stimulus  of  dissimilarity. 

Detailed  information  as  to  these  and  other  forms  of  erotic 
eccentricity  can  be  got  from  books  on  sexual  pathology ;  in  this 
general  survey,  it  will  be  unnecessary  to  do  more  than  bear 
their  existence  in  mind,  and  to  take,  note  of  certain  facts  and 
considerations  which  will  help  us  to  estimate  their  relation  to 
moral  responsibility. 

We  have  seen  reason  to  suppose,  first  of  all,  that  a  class 
of  cases  exists  whose  formative  principle  is  sexual  recklessness. 
Without  possessing  particular  abnormal  impulses,  this  kind, 
being  more  or  less  devoid  of  inhibitory  principle,  experiments 
in  whatever  direction  its  sexual  fancy  happens  to  dictate.  In 
many  other  cases,  the  pressure  of  an  anomalous  sexual  environ- 
ment is  the  weightiest  determinant  of  the  unseemly  occurrence. 
Thus,  incest  has  frequently  become  common  in  country  villages ; 
it  did  so  in  particular  in  medieval  Europe^^ — owing  to  the 
limitations  imposed  on  marriage  and  matrimonial  choice,  by 
adverse  economic  and  social  conditions.  The  same  conditions 
variously  modified  promote  it  in  the  poorer  parts  of  towns.'*'*' 
Again,  bestiality  is  often  a  result  of  men's  sexual  isolation  in 
pastoral  districts ;  and  was  doubtless  formerly  commoner  than 
it  is  now.'*^ 

A  recently  discovered  physiological  fact,  to  which  allusion 
has  been  made  elsewhere  in  this  treatise,  must  also  be  taken 
account  of,  and  will  go  far  to  explain  the  causation  of  such 
antisocial  and  repulsive  phenomena  as  we  are  considering. 
Geddes  and  Thomson  have  concisely  stated  it.'*^     Testes  and 


46  Michelet,  La  Sorciere,  ch.  xii. 

"^"^  Discussion  in  the  Upper  House  of  Convocation,  reported  in  the 
Church  Times,  July  10,  1914. 

"^s  Early  and  medieval  Christianity  had,  apparently,  frequently  to 
punish  it.  (Cone.  Ancyr.  Can.,  xvi ;  see  Routh,  Rell.  Sacr.,  tom.  iv, 
p.  221 ;  cp.  Ellis  and  Moll,  Handbuch  der  Sexualwissenschaften,  p.  637 ; 
Hansen,  Zauberwahn,  Inquisition  und  Hexenpro2ess  im  Mittelalter,  p. 
408.) 

"^^  Geddes  and  Thomson,  Sex,  pp.  80f. 

20 


306  OTHER   FORMS    OF    PERVERSION. 

ovaries  are  composed  of  sperm-  and  ovum-  making  cells,  and 
interstitial  cells.  These  latter  may  develop  and  function  inde- 
pendently of  the  condition  of  the  former.  They  may  be  de- 
veloped ahead  of  the  germinal  cells  in  young  testes ;  they  may 
remain  normal  and  active  in  old  or  diseased  testes.  Among  the 
functions  assigned  to  these  interstitial  cells,  is  that  of  producing 
the  sexual  excitants,  called  by  Starling  "hormones,"  which  are 
subsequently  diffused  throughout  the  organism. 

Sexual  precocity  and  hyperesthesia  in  childhood  need  to  be 
viewed  in  connection  with  this  physiological  process ;  which 
likewise  renders  more  intelligible  the  moral  breakdowns  of  old 
age,  thus  described  by  Mercier: — 

"There  are  old  men  who  have  lived  a  normal  and 
reputable  life  up  to  a  time  when,  with  the  advance  of  age,  their 
sexual  desire  has  died  away  and  disappeared.  They  have 
families  of  grown-up  children  and  often  of  grandchildren. 
After  a  considerable  interval  of  sexual  neutrality,  they  experi- 
ence a  revival  of  sexual  desire,  often  intense  in  degree.  The 
candle  flares  up  in  its  socket,  and  they  are  startled  to  find 
themselves  moved  with  all,  and  more  than  all,  the  sexual  pro- 
clivity of  their  early  manhood. "^^ 

Furthermore,  just  as  the  immaturity  of  childhood,  when 
combined  with  precocious  and  intense  sexual  feeling,  is  pro- 
lific in  disgusting  and  perverted  sexual  experiments,  which  are 
usually  given  up  when  the  brain  and  sexual  nature  mature,  so 
in  adult  life,  when  the  inhibitory  brain  centers  are  congenitally 
weak,  or  become  weak  through  senile  decay,  paradoxical  and 
abnormal  sexual  acts  are  likely  to  be  committed. 

There  are,  moreover,  cases  of  congenital  inclination, 
analogous  to  congenital  sadistic  and  masochistic  tendencies,  to 
some  one  or  other  of  these  abnormal  gratifications.  Forel 
gives  a  remarkable  example  of  sexual  paradoxy — adult  in- 
clination to  young  children — which  can  scarcely  be  accounted 
for  in  any  other  way.'^^^ 


50  C.  Mercier,  Criminal  Responsibility,  p.  145. 

51  Forel,  Die  sexuelle  Frage  (ed.  10),  p.  291. 


OTHER    FORMS    OF    PERVERSION.  307 

As,  then,  we  survey  this  field  we  perceive  many  and  vari- 
ous grades  of  moral  responsibility.  It  is  right,  in  the  first  place, 
to  recognize  consistently  and  unfailingly,  the  objective  hideous- 
ness  of  the  phenomena  in  question.  Forel's  treatment  of 
bestiality^-  is  unsatisfactory  on  this  ground.  He  should,  it 
seems,  have  emphasized  more  strongly  the  antagonism  be- 
tween bestiality  and  the  esthetic  canon  in  sexual  morals.  The 
ingenious  attempt  to  soften  this  antagonism  by  adducing  the 
mythological  conceptions  of  unions  between  animals  (or  birds) 
and  human  beings — conceptions  which  have  been  utilized  in 
art — fails,  or  at  least  is  seen  to  involve  a  retrogression  toward 
immature  value- judgments  in  the  province  of  sexual  morals, 
when  we  reflect  that  to  mythological  thought  it  is  only  the  fact 
of  a  human  (i.e.,  divine  human)  entity  being  fused  with  the 
bird  or  animal,  that  makes  the  union  esthetically  tolerable.^^ 
There  are  some  symbolic  conceptions — we  meet  such  in  the 
Bible  itself — which  are  instructive  or  touching  or  elevating  as 
long  as  they  are  sufifered  to  remain  in  the  region  of  symbolism ; 
but  which  become  grotesque  or  repulsive  if  translated  into 
terms  of  literal  fact.^"* 

It  is  therefore  to  the  community's  advantage  to  maintain 
an  attitude  of  abhorrence  and  reprobation  toward  these  phe- 
nomena. That  is  the  legacy  of  value  which  the  old  savage  penal 
laws  have  left.  Only,  modern  society  must  put  that  legacy  out 
to  interest  in  ways  different  from  those  which  our  forefathers 
employed.  Our  laws  must  retain  the  power  of  exercising 
severity  in  respect  of  such  occurrences.  Even  the  foregoing 
survey,  brief  as*  it  is,  has  shown  that  penal  legislation  must 
take  account  of  the  possible,  nay  probable,  presence  of  a  num- 
ber of  mitigating  circumstances,  in  its  endeavor  to  estimate 
responsibility  and  guilt  in  one  of  these  connections.     The  kind 

52  Ibid.,  pp.  292f . 

53  Cp.  MacCulloch,  The  Childhood  of  Fiction,  quoted  by  G.  A. 
Barton,  art.  Bestiality,  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Ethics. 

^■i  E.g.,  the  picture  in  Apoc.  John.,  ch.  i  (r/'.  Trench,  The  Epistles 
to  the  Seven  Churches)  ;  and  see  supra,  p.  14n. 


308  STERILIZATION. 

and  measure  of  punishment  due  to  an  incestuous  or  bestial 
offense  must  vary  greatly  with  the  age  and  mental  state  of  the 
person  committing  it.  Some  of  the  younger  cases,  the  rationale 
of  which  is  vulgar  and  morbid  experimentation,  could  be 
remedied  by  methods  not  involving  publicity  or  imprisonment 
or  lasting  disgrace.  The  mentally  defective  and  many  of  the 
senile  cases  should  likewise  be  spared  this  last  infliction.  But 
there  are  certainly  some  among  the  offenders  in  this  province 
whose  responsibility  is  conditioned  by  no  insupportable  weight 
of  vitiated  heredity  or  adverse  circumstances;  whose  persistent 
impurity  is  the  outcome  of  a  cynically  conceived  theory  of  life. 
These  merit  severe  punishment,  the  dual  principle  of  which 
should  be,  ffrst,  that  modern  punition,  as  we  have  already  ob- 
served, can  never  again  allow  its  necessary  severity  to  become 
unbridled  and  experimentative  savagery ;  and,  secondly,  that 
the  entrance  of  reforming  influences  must  be  kept  perpetually 
open  and  free.^^ 

Castration  or  sterilization — the  operation  may  be  per- 
formed in  several  ways — is  found  not  to  be  of  uniform  value  in 
the  extinction  of  sexual  desire ;  but  it  is  occupying  the  attention 
of  legislators  in  various  parts  of  the  world,  inasmuch  as  ex- 
periments give  reason  to  hope  that  it  may,  if  employed  as  a 
punishment  in  certain  cases  of  sexual  crime,  satisfactorily  dis- 
pose of  at  least  a  percentage  of  them. 

Sexual  degeneracy  or  abnormality,  while  yet  incipient  and 
unmarked  by  violent  and  outrageous  acts  in  the  subject's  career, 
may  be  combated  by  the  moral  suasion  method  and  by  hygienic 
precautions,  in  the  manner  already  outlined  in  this  work.  It 
may  yet  be  possible  in  many  such  cases  to  guide  the  sexual  in- 
stinct into  its  normal  channel,  to  discipline  and  control  it. 
Moreover,  the  problems  of  heredity  are  still  so  far  from  solu- 
tion that,  as  Moll  points  out,-"*^  it  is  often  difficult  to  determine 


^5  For  a  judicious  and  authoritative  general  estimate  of  modern 
developments  in  penal  law,  see  R.  F.  Quinton,  art.  Criminology,  in 
Hastings,  Enc.  Rel.  Ethics. 

56  Op.  cit.,  p.  1042. 


STERILIZATION.  309 

what  kind  or  degree  of  sexual  perversion  in  the  individual  will 
inevitably  occasion  degeneracy  in  his  offspring.  But  in  the 
case  of  a  declared  sexual  degenerate  of  the  dangerous  type, 
when  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  educate  him,  on  the  principle 
put  forward  by  Fere  and  other  modern  thinkers,  to  adopt  for 
himself  such  a  rule  of  chastity  as  will  prevent  the  propagation 
of  his  diseased  tendency,  then  it  seems  legitimate  to  have  re- 
course to  physical  means. 

Sterilization  certainly  raises  ethical  questions ;  but  these 
should  not  be  prejudged  by  reference  to  scholastic  and  patristic 
a  priori  notions,  or  by  legalistic  interpretations  of  Scripture.^''' 
The  principle  "peccatum  suhjacct  voluntati"^^  is  of  limited 
application  where  the  sexual  heredity  is  greatly  disordered.  In 
the  light  of  a  more  detailed  knowledge  than  Aquinas  possessed, 
we  perceive  the  frequent  inadequacy  of  volitional  power,  even 
when  acted  upon  by  the  best  religious  and  scientific  suggestion 
procurable,  to  curb  the  morbid  impulse. 

The  morality  of  sterilization  needs  accordingly  to  be  esti- 
mated on  utilitarian  principles.  A  great  deal  turns  on  the 
question  of  its  sedative  efficacy.  It  is  not  enough,  where  sexual 
perversion  is  concerned,  merely  to  prevent  procreation.  The 
individualistic  aspect  of  sexuality  also  needs  consideration. 
The  perverted  and  exaggerated  instinct  itself  calls  for  help  and 
remedy ;  and  since  sterilization  has  no  directive,  it  must  at  least 
make  good  its  claims  to  have  a  sedative  influence. 

This  question,  and  that  of  the  remoter  mental  and  bodily 
effects  of  the  operation,   have  to  be  decided  at  the  bar  of " 
medical  knowledge. 

In  the  present  state  of  that  knowledge,  the  surgeon's  re- 
sponse to  voluntary  applications  for  the  operation  will  not  be 
uniform.  Sterilization  will  not  be  indicated  in  every  case  of 
perverted  sexuality.  Nor  indeed  can  it  stand  alone  as  a 
punishment,  or  as  a  measure  for  reforming  a  sexual  criminal. 

^"^  For  a  summary  of  these  arguments  see  L.  H.  Gray,  art.  Eunuch, 
in  Hastings,  Encyc.  R.  E. 

58  Aquinas,  Summa,  ii,  Qu.  Ixv,  ad  3. 


310  STERILIZATION. 

The  most  that  can  be  hoped  is  that  in  some  cases  it  may  suc- 
cessfully supplement  and  shorten  detention. 

Whether  punitive  sterilization  in  the  form  of  vasectomy — 
the  cutting  or  opening  of  the  vas  deferens — is  objectionable  on 
the  ground  of  cruelty,  seems  as  yet  imperfectly  decided.  On 
the  evidence  before  the  present  writer  he  inclines,  though 
speaking  with  reserve,  to  think  the  objection  invalid.  The 
operation  itself,  according  to  the  testimony  of  .some  prominent 
Indiana  surgeons,  is  not  formidable ;  and  the  inconvenience 
caused  is  a  mere  trifle  in  comparison  with  the  sadistic  cruelty 
which,  ex  hypothesi,  it  obviates. 

Another  objection,  that  if  vasectomy  were  socially  utilized 
as  proposed,  it  would  be  abused  by  unscrupulous  persons  to 
antisocial  ends,  falls  to  the  ground  before  the  consideration 
that  such  abuse  would  not  wait  for  the  legalization  of  the 
operation ;  and  must,  if  the  fear  of  it  is  well  grounded,  be 
occurring  now.  Moreover,  the  utiscrupulous  hands  must  at 
any  rate  be  hands  trained  in  surgery.  The  operation  would  be 
legal  only  under  certain  conditions  and  at  the  hands  of  certain 
licensed  or  appointed  surgeons ;  and  on  the  analogy  of  other 
illegal  operations,  it  may  be  presumed  that  the  surgeons  willing 
to  break  the  law  would  be  few.  The  penalty  should  be  pro- 
portionate to  the  important  social  bearings  of  the  operation, 
and  to  the  unusual,  though  scarcely  insuperable,  difficulty  of 
detecting  and  bringing  home  the  offense.  In  any  case,  abusus 
lion  tollit  usum.^^ 

Addendum  to  page  294 : — 

The  psychological  origin  of  disgust  has  been  analyzed  by 
Havelock  Ellis  and  others. ^^     Hartland  refers  to  the  feeling 


59  The  preliminary  report  of  an  American  commission  on  sterili- 
zation, under  the  chairmanship  of  Mr.  Bleacher  Van  Wagenen  has 
lately  come  into  my  hands.  It  is  in  accord  with  the  views  taken  in 
this  chapter,  on  all  the  main  points  (See  American  Sterilization  Laws, 
pub.  by  the  Eugenics  Education  Society  London). 
60  H.  Ellis,  Studies,  vol.  i,  ed.  3,  pp.  46ff. 


DISGUST.  311 

in  a  way  which  impHes  that  it  is  a  recently  evolved  product.*^ ^ 
This  is  not  so,  as  reference  to  Ellis  (loc.  cit.)  shows.  Hart- 
land's  facts  illustrate,  however,  the  readiness  with  which  this 
subjective  emotion  gives  way  to  the  pressure  of  primordial 
needs  (Sven  Hedin,  in  Through  Asia,  gives  an  illustration  from 
thirst),^-  or  even  of  diseased  cravings. ^3  That  is  why  to  appeal 
to  a  person's  feelings  of  disgust  with  a  view  to  sedating  morbid 
or  wrong  desires  is  of  dubious  efficacy  taken  by  itself ;  though 
this  is  a  method  which  philosophers  from  Lucretius  onward 
have  tried. ''"^  But  with  whatever  uncertainty  of  inhibition  dis- 
gust may  act,  it  is  still  one  of  the  factors  which  make  for  the 
sublimation  of  life's  common  activities ;  and  this  fact  gives  it 
an  objective  social  value  of  which  legislation  cannot  afiford  to 
lose  sight. 


61  Primitive  Paternity,  vol.  i,  pp.  69fif. 

62^.  2Kgs.  18:27. 

63  W.  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  ii,  p.  543. 

64Lucr.  iv,  1174ff.:  Bloch,  Sexual  Life,  pp.  436f. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

The  Evolution  of  Sexual  Morality. 

Evolution  of  Moral  Ideas — Prehuman  Stage  of  Morality — Growth 
of  Humanity's  Sex  Knowledge — Variability  of  Value-judgments — 
Sex  Morality  in  the  Evolution  of  the  Race  and  of  the  Child— The 
Religious  Factor — Ethical  Ideals  of  the  Sex  Life  in  Civilized  Society 
— Their  Germinal  Principles  in  Primitive  Society — Statement  of  the 
Ideals — The  Manner  of  their  Realization — Principles  of  Casuistry — 
Sex  Morality  in  Relation  to  Theology. 

Charles  Lamb,  speaking  of  literary  masterpieces  in  manu- 
script, said  that  "it  staggered  him  to  see  the  fine  things  as  they 
are  there,  interlined,  corrected,  as  if  their  words  were  mortal, 
alterable,  displaceable  at  pleasure,  as  if  they  might  have  been 
otherwise  and  just  as  good,  as  if  inspiration  was  made  up  of 
parts,  and  those  fluctuating,  successive,  indifferent !"  A  similar 
feeling  distresses  many  people  in  connection  with  accepted 
moral  ideas  and  religious  sanctions.  They  cannot  bear  to  look 
at  them  in  their  becoming.  They  fear  by  so  doing  to  see  them 
evaporate  into  the  clouds  of  ethical  subjectivism  and  illusion. 
Yet  in  fact,  ethical  evolution  implies  the  development  of  moral 
ideas  from  germinal  principles.  It  will  be  our  aim  in  this  chap- 
ter to  distinguish  these,  the  primal  constituents  of  sexual 
morals.  It  may  be  that  we  shall  find  in  them  something  like 
a  static  point  of  origin  for  a  fluid  body  of  evolving  ethical  ideas, 
an  objective  basis  for  a  subjective  structure  of  sanctions. 

In  the  formation  of  ethical  concepts,  all  the  factors  co- 
operate under  the  universal  law  of  evolution;  and  as  to  the 
religious  factor  itself,  its  operation  apart  from  or  independent 
of  that  law  has  not  been  demonstrated.  Indeed,  the  notion 
of  such  a  distinct  operation  in  the  case  of  that  factor, 
would  seem  to  be  an  anthropomorphic  method  of  allegorizing, 
rather  than  a  rational  estimate  of  the  religious  element  in  the 
formative  process. 
(312) 


ORIGINS    OF    MORALITY.  313 

The  germ  of  mature  or,  rather,  of  still  maturing  ethical 
ideas  exists  already  in  the  phylogenetic  heritage  received  by 
man  in  his  evolution  from  lower  forms  of  life.i  An  elementary 
morality,  and  especially  an  elementary  sexual  morality,  ante- 
cedent to  man,  is  inductively  evident ;  and  the  proof  thereof  is 
cumulative.  But  the  existence  of  such  a  morality  may  also  be 
deduced  a  priori  from  the  now  established  psychological  fact, 
that  there  is  a  principle  of  oneness  in  the  psychic  processes 
formerly  regarded  as  absolutely  distinct,  the  processes  of  ratio- 
cination, volition,  feeling,  and  instinct  ;2  that  these  processes  do 
more  than  coexist,  more  than  cohere;  that  they  are  in  fact 
cognate  manifestations  of  the  one  comprehensive  psychic 
capacity,  consciousness.  An  instinct  is  a  form  of  emotion  or 
feeling,  the  subjective  reaction  to  an  impression;  ratiocination 
is  the  combination  in  consciousness  of  such  subjective  re- 
actions; a  volition  is  the  product  of  the  commotion  of  the 
psychic  activities  under  the  law  of  motor  suggestion.  Now,  as 
it  is  not  possible  to  demarcate  between  these  overlapping  stages, 
or  blended  processes,  in  the  whole  movement  of  consciousness, 
so  neither  is  it  possible  to  demarcate  between  the  types  of  be- 
ing in  which  consciousness  is  exhibited,  in  respect  of  the 
possession  or  non-possession  of  an  ethical  or  an  ethicoreligious 
capacity;  it  is  not  possible  to  deny  wholly  to  the  lower  em- 
bodiments of  consciousness  what  is  affirmed  for  higher  em- 
bodiments of  it  in  the  series.  And  as  the  psychic  capacities 
in  the  conscious  entities  differ  in  degree  and  elaboration  of 
development,  not  in  kind;  so  the  content  of  those  capacities, 

1  Cp.  Mario  Puglisi,  II  problema  morale  nelle  religioni  primitive  in 
Bilychnis,  fasc.  viii,  p.  186;  Thomson  and  Geddes,  Problems  of  Sex,  ch, 
i :  "the  primary  impulses  and  emotions,  the  raw  materials  of  morality, 
the  springs  of  conduct  which  he — man — inherited  from  his  prehuman 
ancestors."  The  subconscious  operation  of  instinctive  factors  in  the 
formation  of  ethical  concepts  is  affirmed  from  the  anthropological  side 
by  A.  E.  Crawley,  art.  Chastity,  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  R.  E.  This  is  the 
final  indication  of  comparative  ethics  in  humanity.  It  remains  to  follow 
that  indication  farther  back  in  the  evolutionary  series;  which  I  here 
attempt  to  do. 

2  Cp.  J.  Hyslop,  art.  Conscience,  Hastings,  op.  cit.,  vol.  iv,  p.  32b. 


314  ORIGINS    OF   MORALITY. 

as  held  by  entities  of  various  types  in  the  series,  differs  analo- 
gously. Whether,  then,  ethical  religion  be  viewed  as  a  sub- 
jective product,  or  as  an  objective  group  of  ideas  presented  to 
the  consciousness  ab  extra,  there  is  now,  from  the  recognition 
of  evolutional  law,  no  a  priori  reason  why  ethical  religion  as  an 
elaborate  notion  should  not  have  had  indefinitely  simpler  prece- 
dent notions  cognate  with  itself.  For  if  there  are  entities  psy- 
chically capable  of  experiencing  moral  and  religious  sentiment, 
or  of  receiving  moral  and  religious  impressions,  in  however 
simple  a  degree,  why  should  that  want  remain  unsatisfied,  in 
the  economy  of  the  universe,  any  more  than  the  more  complex, 
but  analogous  and  even  cognate  wants  of  higher  entities  in  the 
series  ?  The  precedent  notions  of  ethical  religion  will  of  course 
be  simplified,  in  comparison  with  the  first  named,  almost  ad 
infiiiititni.  Religious  consciousness  gradually  shades  off  into 
mere  life  consciousness. 

An  ethicoreligious  concept,  then,  is  not  the  creation  of  the 
psychic  processes  in  man ;  for  these  processes  do  not  create 
ex  niliilo.  They  are  means  for  the  production  of  an  ethico- 
religious concept ;  but  its  material  already  exists ;  not,  be  it  ob- 
served, a  formless  material,  but  one  which  has  been  already 
sl\aped  or  molded  in  the  rough,  in  the  undeveloped  conscious- 
ness of  lower  forms  of  life,  before  it  is  taken  up  and  worked 
upon  by  the  human  consciousness. 

But,  now,  we  must  fully  and  fairly  admit  not  only  the  con- 
tinuance, but  the  extent  and  complexity,  of  the  action  of  the 
principle  of  change  in  humanity's  sex  life.  That  life  has  been 
a  process  of  inquiry  and  experimentation,  as  will  readily  ap- 
pear to  anyone  reading  such  a  book  as  Ploss-Bartels,  Das  IVeib 
in  der  Natur-  nnd  Volkcrkunde.  Here  we  see  humanity  ten- 
tatively stating  the  physical  and  hygienic  laws  of  the  sex  life. 
This  process  bears,  more  or  less  directly,  on  the  discernment  of 
its  ethical  laws  and  ideals. 

Human  knowledge  has  passed  through  stages  where 
magical  conceptions  have  been  dominant  and  the  relation  of 
cause  and  effect  has  been  a  subject  of  guesswork.     Sex  knowl- 


VARIATIONS    OF    MORAL   JUDGMENT.  315 

edge  has  not  been  exempted  from  this  evolutionary  law ;  and 
it  will  readily  be  understood  that  the  superstitious  ideas  thus 
formed  have  variously  influenced  and  deflected  the  evolution 
of  such  germinal  ethical  principles  as  the  most  primitive 
human  consciousness  may  have  grasped.  All  the  particular 
aspects — religious,  social,  hygienic,  esthetic,  and  other — are 
being  put  together  into  an  ethical  synthesis  in  human  con- 
sciousness ;  but  in  the  process,  they  illustrate  the  working  of 
superstitious  factors,  and  exhibit  variations  and  oppositions  of 
human  judgment. 

The  sex  life  is  thought  of,  for  instance,  as  sympathetically 
influencing  the  life  of  action  and  work.  Agriculture  illustrates 
this  notion.  Some  peoples  think  that  conjugal  relations  entered 
into  at  sowing  time  favorably  affect  the  crop  sown.  A  Javanese 
couple  will  camp  in  the  ricefields  at  night  with  that  object  in 
view.  But  there  are  other  human  societies  where  the  opposite 
conclusion,  that  sowing  time  is  a  time  for  continence,  is  held. 
Similarly,  while  some  primitive  communities  forbid  sexual 
intercourse  at  the  beginning  of  a  war,  others  employ  it  as  a 
means  of  obtaining  an  omen.-^ 

There  are  -diversities  of  view  in  the  religious  aspect  of 
the  sex  life.  The  attitude  of  higher  or  divine  beings  to  sexual 
phenomena  is  diversely  estimated,  some  societies  holding  that 
such  beings  abhor,  others  that  they  have  a  personal  and  inti- 
mate interest  in  this  class  of  phenomena. 

The  psychic  element  in  sex  love  has  been  regarded  by 
some  communities  as  a  sickness  or  weakness,"^  by  others  as  a 
source  of  strength  and  energy.  Virginity  and  celibacy  are  very 
variously  estimated,  the  variations  ranging  from  veneration 
to  contempt.  The  principle  of  marriage  prohibition  receives 
opposite  applications  in  the  two  systems  of  endogamy  and 
exogamy ;  and  is  otherwise  very  variously  applied. 

Once  again,  humanity  has  experimented  variously  on  the 


3  PIoss-Bartels,    Das    Weib,    Bd.    i,    p.    544.      Frazer,    The    Magic 
Art,  vol.  ii,  ch.  xi. 

4  Bloch,  Die  Prostitution,  Bd.  i.  pp.  228f. 


316  VARIATIONS    OF    MORAL   JUDGMENT. 

sexual  nature,  with  the  objects  of  exciting  or  sustaining,  direct- 
ing or  repressing  erotic  desire ;  and  has  Hkewise  conceived 
many  inystical  notions,  invented  many  devices,  and  follov^ed 
many  practices,  with  the  view  of  making  procreation  safe  and 
successful.  Nor  did  Christianity  establish  a  distinctive  sexual 
ethic.  Its  function  is  rather  to  evaluate  the  ideas  and  prac- 
tices of  the  sex  life  of  humanity  at  large.  Accordingly,  the 
principle  of  development  continues  to  operate  in  Christian 
ethics  where  they  are  concerned  with  sex. 

Apart  from  the  sifting  out  of  practices  which  may  be  set 
down  as  pagan  survivals  or  social  corruptions,  and  about  which 
the  inner  educated  Christian  conscience — by  no  means 
always  the  same  thing  as  current,  professedly  Christian  opinion 
— was  never  in  doubt,  practices,  e.g.,  as  the  jus  primes  noctis/^ 
and  the  socially  tolerated  polygamy  of  influential  persons ;® 
there  fall  to  be  noted  such  phenomena  as  Christian  spiritual 
marriage — to  the  historical  aspect  of  which  much  attention  has 
recently  been  called''' — and  the  changing  estimates  made  of  it 
by  the  official  element  in  the  Church ;  the  variations  in  the  gen- 
eral estimate  of  polygamy,^  over  and  above  the  mere  sub- 
servience just  referred  to;  the  various  applications  of  the 
ascetic  principle ;  and,  above  all,  the  fact  that  the  pre-Tridentine 
canon  law  of  marriage,  according  to  which  consensus  per  verba 
in  prcusenti,  even  without  witnesses,  was  sufficient  to  constitute 
marriage,  has  been  suspended,  if  we  cannot  say  finally  abro- 
gated, by  modern  opinion  and  legislation.^ 

There  have  been  other  minor  variations  in  ethical  valua- 
tion. Examples  of  the  spirit  of  inquiry  and  experimentation 
in  the  sex  life,  among  Christian  communities,  can  be  got  from 
the  work  of  Ploss-Bartels.    Practices  which  to  some  Christian 


5  Ploss-Bartels,  op.  cit.,  Bd.  i,  pp.  687ff. 

6  Westermarck,  Hist,  of  Human  Marriage,  p.  434. 

7  See  p.  228f. 

8  See  Additional  Note  H  on  Polygamy. 

9  In  England,  in   1753,  an  Act  of   Parliament  forbade  marriages 
not  made  before  a  public  official.     See  p.  98. 


VARIATIONS    OF    MORAL   JUDGMENT.  317 

societies  have  seemed  to  involve  no  offense  against  modesty,  as 
the  admission  of  mothers  into  the  bride-chamber  as  witnesses 
of  consummation,  have  been  repudiated  by  the  general  moral 
sense  of  Christendom.  Household  customs  which  have  seemed 
allowable  to  some  Christian  societies,  such  as  that  of  "bund- 
ling"— two  unmarried  persons  of  opposite  sex  sleeping  con- 
tinently on  the  same  bed — or  of  placing  a  naked  sword  in  bed, 
which  had  the  same  implication,  have  been  rejected  as  morally 
dangerous.  Unions  which  ecclesiastical  authority  has  at  one 
time  allowed,  as  the  sanctioning  by  Pope  Callixtus  of  the  tem- 
porary cohabitation  of  patrician  ladies  with  their  male  slaves, 
have  been  subsequently  pronounced  immoral.  On  the  other 
hand,  certain  unions  which  Christian  ethical  theory  at  one  time 
strongly  condemned — as  those  between  Christians  and  Jews, 
which  were  ranked  with  unnatural  oft'ensesi^ — have  later  on 
been  pronounced  unobjectionable.  Of  such  Westermarck  gives 
other  examples.  Opinion  on  the  lawfulness  of  divorce,  and  as 
to  the  reasons  nullifying  a  marriage,  has  largely  varied. 

Were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  in  the  following  chapter  we 
shall  be  able  to  account  for  the  variation  in  human  value-judg- 
ments by  recognizing  that  the  cognitive  faculty  is  not  uni- 
formly developed  in  all  men,  and  functions  in  a  great  variety 
of  conditions,  we  should  have  to  conclude  that  sexual  morality 
is,  after  all,  nothing  but  an  incoherent  subjectivism,  a  flux  of 
ideas  wherein  no  consistent  directive  principles  can  be  dis- 
tinguished. For  the  variations  in  question  cannot  always  be 
recognized  as  degenerative,  in  the  sense  of  involving  the  con- 
scious alteration  of  fully  developed  ethical  theories;  as  a  de- 
cadent society  might  be  imagined  adopting  a  lower  ethical 
theory  from  vicious  indifference  to  a  higher.  They  are,  rather, 
in  many  cases  at  least,  developments  from  a  primal  stock  of 
instincts,  constituent  elements  in  the  comprehensive  sexual  in- 
stinct ;ii  and  the  student  of  them  has  to  determine  whether  they 


10  Krauss,  Im  Kerker  vor  und  nach  Christus,  p.  293. 

11  Freud  reminds  us  that  we  ought  in  strictness  to  speak  of  sexual 
impulses  in  the  pkiral. 


318      PSYCHOLOGY  OF  SEX  DEVELOPMENT. 

follow  or  deviate  from  the  line  of  psychical  evokuion  leading 
toward  the  realization  of  the  notions  which  on  social,  utili- 
tarian, esthetic,  or  comprehensively  ethicoreligioiis  grounds, 
are  posited  by  ethics,  in  its  role  of  a  critical  science^-  as  the 
ethical  ideals  of  the  sex  life.  But  it  is  premature  here  to 
estimate  the  measure  of  a  society's  responsibility  about  its 
apprehension  of  the  ideals — whether  that  apprehension  is  clear 
or  dim,  full  or  imperfect.  For  we  have  not  yet  disposed  of  the 
considerations  preparatory  to-  the  introduction  of  the  ethical 
ideals  and  principles  which  here  concern  us. 

Since  the  stages  of  racial  evolution  are  recapitulated  in 
the  individual  life,  we  should  expect  that  in  the  sex  life  of  the 
child  the  factors  determining  the  psychical  development  of  the 
sex  nature  will  be  the  same  as  operate  racially  in  primitive 
stages  of  human  evolution. 

The  origination  and  maturing  of  the  human  sex  impulse 
have  been  described,  and  its  psychical  analysis  made  by  Have- 
lock  Ellis  and  Freud.  I  follow  the  latter  thinker  closely  at  thi'; 
point. 

There  takes  place  in  the  organism  a  gradual  association 
of  pleasurable  sensations  with  particular  parts ;  or,  speaking 
more  technically,  erogenic  zones  are  formed.  The  very  young 
child's  sexual  system  is  not  yet  definitely  arranged  and 
located. 1^  His  sex  consciousness  proceeds  indeterminately  and 
automatically ;  or.  to  use  Havelock  Ellis's  precise  term,  auto- 
erotically.  The  adult's  sexual  attitude  is  developed  out  of 
the  original  indeterminate  sexual  disposition  in  consequence  of 
organic  changes  and  psychic  checks.  These  latter  Freud 
designates  as  shame,  disgust,  sympathy,  and  the  social  con- 
structions of  morality  and  authority. ^^ 

We  note  further,  in  regard  to  these  checks  or  inhibitions, 
that  the  child  is  capable  of  receiving  and  assimilating  them, 
of  working  them  into  the  texture  of  its  mental  life.     But  they 


12  J.  H.  Muirhead,  art.  Ethics,  in  Hastings,  op.  cit. 
i"^  S.  Freud,  Drei  Abhandlungen  zur  Sexualtheorie,  ii. 
14  Id.,  p.  77. 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    SEX    DEVELOPMENT.  319 

are  not  spontaneously  operative.  Very  young  children  will  do 
disgusting  things  from  curiosity,  and  will  masturbate — if  they 
learn  the  practice  as  a  reflex  animal  act — at  first  without  con- 
cealment. In  fact,  as  in  general,  so  in  regard  to  the  sex  life, 
"the  niles  (I  italicize  the  word)  of  morality  could  not  be  ar- 
rived at  by  any  conceivable  analysis  of  the  actual  consciousness 
of  infants. "15 

The  child's  life  is,  however,  unimaginable  apart  from  a 
social  environment,  the  operation  of  which  upon  the  child's 
consciousness  readily  produces  the  inhibitory  feelings  afore- 
said. The  child  quickly  learns — perhaps  all  in  a  moment  per- 
ceives— that  such  and  such  a  practice  is  disgusting  or  shameful, 
and  must  be  abandoned  or  at  least  concealed. 

The  presence  in  the  child  consciousness  of  the  factor 
sympathy  is  of  even  greater  importance  for  the  sex  life  than 
the  factors  just  referred  to. 

This  emotion  gives  an  impulse  to  control  sadistic  and 
other  self -regarding  manifestations  of  the  sex  consciousness, 
besides  the  promise  of  positive  moral  developments  such  as 
chivalry.  Sympathy  in  the  child  is  indeed  fitful  and  in  the 
nature  of  things  unintelligent ;  but  it  may  appear  early.  Quite 
young  children  will  exhibit  intense  feeling  about  the  sufferings 
of  others  or  of  animals.  Indeed,  although  enormous  hind- 
rances to*the  formation  of  sympathy  had  arisen  in  the  evolu- 
tionary process,  they  were  surmounted ;  and  sympathy  had 
already  established  itself  in  the  prehuman  biological  series. 

It  thus  appears  that  the  elementary  human  consciousness 
possesses  psychical  elements  capable  in  combination  of  forming 
emotions  to  which  moral  rules  will  appeal.  And  yet,  since 
neither  the  child  nor  the  race  has  any  innate  pre-established 
truths  or  standards  wherewith  to  begin  the  moral  life  they 
are  destined  to  live;  since  both  he  and  it  start  life  on  a  non- 
ethical  plane;  we  must  look  in  both  cases  for  the  initial  I'ls  a 
tergo  in  the  "change  from  instinct  and  impulse,  through  cus- 


15  G.  A.  Coe,  art.  Childhood,  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Eth. 
iii,  p.  519a. 


320      PSYCHOLOGY  OF  SEX  DEVELOPMENT. 

torn,  to  individual  deliberation,"  i.e.,  apprehension  of  and  re- 
flection on  ideals,  to  extra-human  impulses. 

Now  the  recapitulation,  in  the  human  subject,  of  the 
biological  series,  takes  us  indefinitely  farther  back  than  the 
higher  animals ;  consequently,  the  psychical  development  of  the 
newborn  infant  is  not  beginning  just  where  that  of  the  full- 
grown  '"higher  animal"  left  off.  The  difference  between  them 
is  that  the  infant  has  fuller  potentialities.  A  tidal  wave  pur- 
suing lesser  waves  is  the  analogue  of  the  relation  of  an  infant's 
consciousness  to  that  of  a  full-grown  ape  or  dog.  It  is  more 
primitive  in  form,  yet  it  sums  up  into  itself  all  and  more  of 
their  heritage  of  instincts ;  and  its  vastness  and  momentum  will 
eventually  carry  it  farther  up  the  beach  than  they  have  ever 
gone.  We  must  distinguish  instincts  as  individual  or  auto- 
genetic,  and  social  or  phylogenetic.  The  former  are  the  more 
primitive,  and  appear  in  the  earliest  consciousness  of  the  child. 
The  latter  come  into  play  later,  as  the  child  verges  into  adult 
life  and  realizes  that  it  is  part  of  a  social  organism.  It  would 
thus  be  misleading  to  say  that  just  because  certain  of  the  higher 
animals  had  developed  the  instinct  of  monogamy,  and  the  child 
is  higher  in  the  evolutionary  series  than  they,  a  young  child 
already  possesses  that  instinct.  We  can  only  say  that  a  child 
is  instinctively  monogamous,  in  the  sense  that  the  sensations 
which  go  to  form  its  sexual  instinct  are  orientated,  by  the  pres- 
sure of  psychic  factors  normally  present,  toward  monogamy. 
The  fact  that  quite  young  children  are  capable  of  feeling  erotic 
attraction,  psychical  in  character,  toward  particular  persons, 
foreshadows  the  full  development  of  the  monogamous  instinct 
in  the  child.  Further,  the  autogenetic  instincts  of  the  child 
are  impelled  toward  monogamy  by  the  phylogenetic  instincts  of 
his  social  environment ;  and  these  phylogenetic  instincts  are  a 
legacy  from  certain  of  the  higher  animals  in  the  prehuman 
series. 

In  the  case  of  such  an  individual  or  autogenetic  instinct  as 
modesty,  some  at  least  of  the  higher  animals  had,  as  we  have 
seen,  developed  a  sense  of  sexual  shame  or  modesty  up  to  the 


RELIGION    IN   THE   CHILD.  321 

maximum  of  which  they  were  capable. ^^^  In  the  newborn  infant 
this  sense  is  not  yet  awakened,  but  the  awakening  is  soon  to 
come,  and  once  awakened  it  will  attain  a  greater  elevation  and 
complexity  than  it  ever  could  do  in  the  animal. 

Thus  the  child  consciousness  at  its  earliest  stages  is  poten- 
tially receptive  of  moral  principles.  The  psychical  material  of 
ethical  conceptions  is  there,  and  even  the  content  of  certain  of 
those  conceptions  is  already  foreshadowed.  But  the  matured 
result  of  these  preliminaries  is  largely  a  matter  of  response  to 
environmental  intluences,  of  the  modification  of  the  individual 
instincts  by  the  later  action  of  the  social  instincts. 

Here  arises  the  question,  What  kind  of  a  religious 
aspect  does  this  process  present  ?  Evolution  is  led  by  in- 
dividuals ;  not  all  children  are  equally  responsive  to  ethical 
calls.  We  can  at  least  affirm  that  the  child  soul,  like  the  primi- 
tive soul,!*^"  is  capable — not  uniformly  throughout  in  the  mass 
of  children  or  of  primitive  humanity,  but  through  specially 
evolved  individuals — of  receiving  an  ethicoreligious  revelation 
suited  to  its  powers  of  apprehension.  When  it  is  stated  that 
"true  and  deep  religious  experience  is  almost  impossible  before 
adolescence,"!'  it  may  be  answered  that  the  truth  of  this  propo- 
sition depends  on  the  sense  attached  to  the  qualifying  adjectives. 
Young  children's  religious  experience  does  indeed  differ  from 
that  of  adults  and  adolescents ;  but  there  is  no  reason  for  deny- 
ing its  value.  Children's  earliest  religious  feelings  and  ideas 
about  sexual  morality  are  in  fact  in  the  taboo  stage — just  as 
their  theories  about  sexual  phenomena  are  parallel  to  those  of 
primitive  humanity. i'^  They  seem  to  perceive,  in  such  inhibi- 
tions as  they  feel,  the  control  of  mysterious  powers ;  as  primi- 
tive man  observes  taboos  and  avoidances.    It  is  somewhat  thus 


ifi  Supra,  p.  8. 

i"'!  C/).  Mario  Puglisi,  op.  cit.,  pp.  lUf. 
1"  Stanley  Hall,  Adolescence,  vol.  ii,  p.  300. 

^^H.    Ellis,    Studies,    vol.   vi,   pp.   40ff. ;    Freud,   Ueber   infantilen 
Scxualtheorien,  in  Neurosenlchre,  Zwcite  Folge. 

21 


322  RELIGION   IN    THE   CHILD. 

that  primitive  religious  ethics  are  recapitulated  in  the  evolving 
consciousness. 

We  find  in  children  no  evidence  of  an  educative  ethical 
revelation  which  is  at  the  same  time  static  and  infallibly  de- 
cretive ;  but  we  do  perceive  the  entrance  through  many  avenues 
into  the  child-consciousness  of  a  spirit  or  principle  tending  to 
control  and  direct  the  psychical  evolution  of  the  sexual  nature, 
and  bringing  the  will  to  greater  autonomy  in  this  province. 
Put  otherwise,  and  in  accordance  with  the  following  chapter, 
this  means  that  human  consciousness,  even  in  the  most  elemen- 
tary stage,  tends  to  gain  an  increasingly  full  and  accurate  cog- 
nition of  objects,  noumenal  as  well  as  phenomenal,  in  the 
limited  universe  of  sex. 

The  possibility  that  supernormal  occurrences  may  con- 
tribute to  the  religious  development  cannot  here  be  ignored. 
The  idea  of  objective  spiritual  presence  in  the  environment  is 
not  to  be  put  aside,  with,  e.g.,  Stanley  Hall,  as  hallucinatory, 
as  "folly  and  pathos"  ;^^  nor,  accordingly,  does  the  religious 
factor  in  either  primitive  humanity  or  young  children  neces- 
sarily consist  wholly  of  subjective  interpretations  and  value- 
judgments  of  sensible  phenomena. 

Alike  in  the  child  and  in  primitive  man,  consciousness  is — 
occasionally  and  sporadically  indeed,  but  this  is  in  accordance 
with  evolutional  analogies — capable  of  extraordinary  function- 
ings,  viz.,  dream,  trance,  and  the  cognate  processes  now  fre- 
quently termed  subliminal,  which  indicate  not  only  subjective 
activities,  but  also,  it  may  be  affirmed  with  great  probability,-^ 
psychic  means  of  communication  with  a  transcendental  order. 

With  this,  however  imperfect,  psychological  analysis  of 
the  formation  of  ethical  concepts,  we  may  proceed  to  deduce 


19  Stanley  Hall,  Adolescence,  vol.  ii,  pp.  43,  292,  n.  8. 

20  It  is  impossible  to  deal  fully  with  this  question  here,  but  I 
write  as  a  student  of  psychics,  an  associate  of  the  Society  for  Psy- 
chical Research,  and  as  a  tolerably  diligent  reader  of  the  relevant 
literature.  A  Biblical  illustration  of  supernormal  perception  turned 
by  the  Divine  will  to  an  ethical  purpose,  is  the  case  of  Samuel. 


ETHICAL   IDEALS    OF   THE    SEX    LIFE.  323 

from  the  elementary  activities  of  the  sex  hfe,  and  from  the 
germinal  ethical  principles  stated  by  Freud,  the  ideals  recog- 
nized by  developed  ethical  thought  as  the  comprehensive  stand- 
ard of  the  sex  life.  The  ideals  are  the  unfolded  content  of  the 
germinal  principles  and  their  evolutionary  increment ;  and,  con- 
versely, the  germinal  principles  give  from  the  first  to  the 
psychical  element  "conation"  or  seeking — an  element  funda- 
mental to  consciousness^! — an  impulsion  toward  the  intellec- 
tual apprehension  of  the  ideals. 

R.  Marrett's  division  of  social  history  into  two  phases,  the 
primitive  or  synnomic,  where  society  is  governed  by  custom, 
and  the  syntelic,  where  it  is  governed  by  ends  or  ideals,  helps 
us  to  grasp  this  connection.  The  customs  and  the  earlier  ger- 
minal moral  principles  are  cognate  with  the  ideals,  as  synnomic 
society  is  related  to  syntelic  society. -- 

As,  then,  we  survey  the  ethical  history  of  mankind  in  the 
syntelic  stage,  the  ideals  of  the  sex  life  reveal  themselves. 
They  are :  (1)  mutual  responsibility,  (2)  temperance,  (3)  dig- 
nity, (4)  procreative  utility,  and  (5)  the  recognition  of  the 
spiritual  status  of  women.  Under  these  concepts  or  most  of 
them  stand  subordinate  or  explanatory  concepts ;  e.g.,  under 
mutual  responsibility  we  shall  place  constancy  and  fidelity ; 
under  dignity,  the  sense  of  beauty  or  the  esthetic  as  an  element 
in  morals, — we  have  noted  already  the  sexual  origin  of  the 
esthetic,23  and  under  our  fifth  heading  masculine  chivalry. 

Once  a  society  has  reached  the  syntelic  stage  of  its 
evolution,  once  it  has  clearly  discerned  the  ideals,  its  collective 
consciousness  never  wholly  loses  sight  of  them  thereafter. 
Not  every  section  of  it  indeed  discerns  them  with  equal  clear- 
ness ;  some  sections  may  refuse  to  be  guided  by  them ;  yet  even 
in  those  societies  which  are  most  largely  and  generally  de- 
cadent, the  ethical  ideals  tend  to  reassert  their  authority.  The 
range  of  their  action  strengthens  our  contention  that  they  have 

21  Hastings,  of.  cit.,  p.  416b,  art.  Ethics,  by  J.  H.  Muirhead. 

22  Id.,  p.  426a. 

23  Cp.  Stanley  Hall,  Adolescence,  vol.  i,  p.  470. 


324  ETHICAL   IDEALS    OF   THE    SEX   LIFE. 

been  germinally  present  to  even  the  most  primitive  human 
moral  consciousness.  As  between  primitive  or  savage,  and 
developed  or  civilized  man,  "the  general  orientation  of  life,  the 
direction  of  the  quest  for  the  real  good,  does  not  seem  to  change 
greatly,  .  .  .  Human  nature,  being  polarized  toward 
virtue,  needs  merely  to  be  relieved  of  its  ignorance  of  the  ways 
and  means  by  which  virtue  is  acquired. "^"^  It  is  easy  to  per- 
ceive the  relationship  between  the  ideals  here  exhibited  and  the 
germinal  principles  that  we  have  already  had  in  view.  The 
primary  element  of  the  sex  life  is  sex  hunger;  but  since  this 
contains  a  desire  to  afford  as  well  as  to  receive  gratification, 
and  indeed  the  latter  result  is  not  fully  achieved  apart  from  the 
former,  it  is  clear  that  the  evolution  of  sex  hunger  must  pro- 
ceed on  altruistic  as  well  as  egoistic  lines.  Here  is  indicated 
the  development  of  mutual  responsibility,  the  "categorical 
value"  of  which  in  the  sex  Hfe  has  already  been  remarked  ;--'^ 
and  when  viewed  in  its  ideal  form  of  constant  love  and  fidelity, 
no  limits  can  be  set  to  its  obligations, — a  fact  which  we  notice 
elsewhere  in  this  essay. 

Sexual  temperance,  too,  is  produced  by  the  altruistic  fac- 
tor, working  in  combination  with  those  prehuman  capacities  of 
fear  and  disgust  which  are  the  ground  of  modesty,  and  aided 
by  the  periodic  rhythm  of  the  sexual  processes.  It  has  been 
maintained  that  temperance  (eyKpareia)  was  the  great  original 
contribution  of  Christianity  to  ethics. ^•^  This  is  not  true; 
whether  the  word  be  understood  of  total  sexual  abstinence — 
apart  from  the  question  whether  such  abstinence  is  ever 
realized  except  in  sexual  anesthesia — for  efforts   have   been 


-'^  R.  R.  Marrett,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  430b,  431a. 

25  Perhaps  the  chief  feature  of  Luther's  sexual  ethic,  which,  as 
Bloch,  Rade,  and  others  have  shown,  was  decisively  important  in  more 
respects  than  one, — we  must  have  regard  to  the  leading  principles  of 
his  teaching  rather  than  to  his  coarseness  and  tendency  to  overstate- 
ment,—was  his  reaffirmation  of  the  principle  of  mutual  responsibility 
in  sex  relations.     (Bloch,  in  Die  Neue  Gen.,  Jahrg.  9,  Heft.  2,  p.  87.) 

20  See  Dean  Inge,  in  Hastings,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  318a. 


ETHICAL   IDEALS    OF   THE    SEX    LIFE.  325 

made  outside  of  Christianity,  to  use  such  abstinence;  or 
whether,  as  is  more  probable,  it  means  sexual  self-control  in  a 
larger  sense. ^'J' 

Dignity  in  the  sex  life  has  its  origin  in  primitive  fear  and 
disgust,  supplemented  by  the  nascent  esthetic  sense  belonging 
even  to  prehuman  evolution. 

It  is  harder  to^  perceive  the  primitive  starting  point  of  the 
fourth  norm,  or  ideal,  procreative  utility.  Yet  it  is  certain 
that  progressive  ethics  exhibits  a  tendency  to  the  general 
recognition  of  this  ideal.  When  mankind  has  discerned  at 
least  the  outlines  of  the  birth  process ;  when  it  has  reached  the 
stage  of  sex  knowledge  at  which  sexual  intercourse  and  con- 
ception are  seen  to  be  related  as  cause  and  effect,  it  becomes 
possible  to  consider  sexuality  in  its  relation  to  the  species ;  and 
rational  condemnation  of  abnormal  practices  becomes  possible 
on  the  ground  of  this  relation. 

In  so  far  as  moral  estimates  of  sexual  activities  can  be 
made  in  connection  with  the  ideal  norms  taken  separately,  it 
results  that  the  farther  an  act  is  from  the  norm  of  procreative 
utility,  the  more  emphatically  it  is  condemned  by  educated 
social  opinion.  The  turpitude,  e.g.,  of  a  homosexual  act  seems 
greater  than  that  of  an  autoerotic  act,  while  the  latter  appears 
in  a  worse  light  than  a  heterosexual  misdemeanor.  But  in 
practice  moral  estimates  are  made  in  a  more  complex  way. 
Thus  a  man's  seduction  of  a  girl  is  more  reprehensible  than  a 
sexually  isolated  person's  lapse  into  masturbation;  though  the 
latter  act  violates  norms  3  and  4,  while  the  former  may  violate 
1  only.  The  fact  is  that,  as  we  shall  presently  discover,  the 
ethical  norms  of  the  sex  life  are  to  be  held  in  a  relation  to 
higher  ultimate  norms  ;  and  in  such  a  case  as  the  one  mentioned, 
the  heterosexual  misdemeanor  violates  these  supreme  norms  in 
greater  measure  than  the  other. 

Educated  ethical  thought  does  not  regard  merely  impul- 

27  So  primitive  a  race  as  the  Central  Australians  have  words 
denoting  sexual  intemperance  (Spencer  and  Gillen,  Native  Tribes  of 
Centra!  Australia,  pp.  250,  471,  2). 


326  ETHICAL   IDEALS    OF   THE    SEX    LIFE. 

sive,  uncalculating  procreation  with  favor.  The  norm  here 
posited  implies  that  procreation  must  be  socially  useful.  The 
weight  of  this  obligation  increases  with  modern  biological 
knowledge;  it  is  emphasized  by  the  new  science  of  eugenics; 
and  it  perforce  influences  our  estimate  of  the  practice  of  con- 
trolling conception.  We  deal  with  this  subject  elsewhere. 
Here  it  is  enough  to  observe  that  educated  ethical  thought  ap- 
proves without  reserve,  in  relation  to  norm  4,  only  true  and 
completed  heterosexual  intercourse. 

In  earlier  stages  of  ethical  evolution,  before  the  relation  of 
sexuality  to  procreation  was  perceived,  the  impulsion  to  the 
observance  of  this  latter  norm  was  given  through  the  collective 
survival  instinct  and  the  growing  esthetic  sense,  which  latter 
condemned  masturbatory  and  yet  more  homosexual  acts  as 
disgusting.28 

To  the  foregoing  norms  must  be  added  the  recognition 
of  the  spiritual  status  of  woman.  This  recognition  can 
be  traced  back  to  primitive  times.  Men  venerated  and 
even  feared  women — particularly  in  their  specifically  sexual 
aspect— even  while  they  bullied  them ;  and  even  in  ignorant, 
corrupt,  and  superstitious  times,  when  the  ideal  of  woman- 
hood was  most  lost  sight  of,  women  tended  to;  get  back  as 
witches  the  spiritual  eminence  they  had  failed  to  retain  as 
saints,  matrons,  and  saviors  of  society.  Bloch  thinks  that  the 
best  element  of  hope  in  modern  developments  of  sexual  mor- 
ality resides  in  the  due  spiritual  valuation  of  women. ^9 

There  are  some  signs  of  a  coming  reconsideration  of  the 
moral  aspect  of  polygyny. ^^  If  the  ethical  thought  of  the 
future  indorses  the  instinctive  repugnance  largely  felt  by 
women  to  this  institution,  and  continues  to  reject  it  as  anti- 
social and  therefore  immoral,  the  reason  will  be  that  polygyny 


28  For  a  brief  description,  see  Bloch,   Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time, 
p.  509. 

29  Id.,  p.  766.     • 

30  See  Additional  Note  H  on  Polygamy. 


ETHICAL   IDEALS    OF   THE    SEX    LIFE.  327 

fails  to  satisfy  the  conditions  imposed  by  the  norm  now  before 
us ;  for  it  conflicts  with  no  other  of  them. 

The  situation  of  the  ethical  norms  stated  above  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  ideal.  They  hang  like  stars  in  the  ideal  region  of 
our  moral  world;  and  we  may  apply  to  them  what  Philo  said 
of  the  moral  precepts  of  the  Mosaic  law.  They  are  fire  and 
light.  "Whosoever  assents  to  the  observance  of  them  shall  pass 
his  life  as  if  in  shadowless  light,  having  the  precepts  as  light- 
giving  stars  within  his  soul.  But  those  who  refuse  to  recognize 
their  conscience-compelling  power  are  continually  scorched  and 
burnt  up  by  the  inward  action  of  their  lusts,  which,  like  a  flame, 
destroys  their  whole  hfe."3i 

Relationship  having  been  discerned  between  the  ideal 
norms  of  synteHc  and  the  instinctive  and  traditional  rules  of 
synnomic  society,  the  latter  being  in  fact  the  germinal  principles 
of  the  former,  it  is  a  matter  of  rational  inference  from  the 
action  of  the  germinal  principles  in  the  world,  that  the  ideals 
are  also  capable  of  ultimate  actualization.  But  while,  on  the 
one  hand,  cumulative  inference  from  probability^-  (which 
Bishop  Butler  showed  to  be  a  ground  of  moral  obligation) 
urges  us  to  strive  for  such  actualization  on  an  ever-wider  and 
completer  scale ;  on  the  other  hand,  deduction  from  experience 
warns  us  that,  in  view  of  the  evolutional  character  of  the 
world-process,  the  full  and  universal  actualization  of  the  ideals 
is  not  to  be  reached  by  superficial  secular  methods. -"^^ 

Hence  the  irreducible  ethical  minimum  of  the  sex  life  in 
humanity  does  not  consist  in  the  flawless  observance  or  full 
legislative  expression  of  the  ideal  norms ;  but  that  minimum 
exacts  that  the  norms  must  always  be'  kept  in  view,  and  that 
the  theory  and  practice  of  sexual  conduct  must  approximate  to 


31  Philo,  De  Decalogo,  ch.  xi. 

32  I  am  obliged  to  use  this  cumbrous  but  exact  phrase  in  place 
of  the  much  misapplied  word,  faith. 

33  The  problem  of  divorce  furnishes  us  with  a  special  illustration 
of  the  truth  of  this  proposition.  See  Chapter  XVI.  Cp.  The  Moralist 
and  the  Legislator,  by  Dean  Inge,  in  Prevention,  vol.  iv,  No.  15. 


328  ETHICAL   IDEALS    OE    THE    SEX    LIFE. 

them.  This  ethical  minimum  is  the  nearest  approach  to  a 
static  element  in  the  social  sex  ethic  that  we  can  find. 

And  this  condition — the  keeping  in  view  of  and  approxi- 
mation to  the  realization  of  the  ideal  norms — being  observed, 
we  can  differentiate  practical  applications  of  the  principles  in- 
herent in  the  norms. 

At  this  point  there  does  indeed  confront  us  the  danger  of 
straying  into  a  worldly  casuistry ;  but  lest  that  danger  should 
check  our  progress  altogether,  it  should  be  remembered  that  the 
principles  of  the  Gospel  not  only  tolerate,  but  enjoin,  the  exer- 
cise of  common  sense,  the  making  of  deductions  from  experi- 
ence.^'*  Only,  such  common  sense  must  be  sanctified.  Among 
its  constituents,  a  suprarational  (not  antirational)  element 
must  find  a  place.  Essential  to  the  Christian  is  the  recognition 
of  that  "complete  honesty,  which  sees  no  limitations  to  its 
duties ;  which  does  not  draw  up  for  itself  a  code  based  on  rela- 
tive judgments,  full  of  indulgent  exceptions,  of  conventional 
transactions  ;"3^  the  contempt  of  "that  weak  indulgence  which 
would  persuade  us  that  we  must  take  the  world  as  it  is,  and 
dissuade  us  from  the  sacred  duty  of  fighting  against  evil,  by 
way  of  mental  reservations  disguising  themselves  as  respect  for 
liberty,  but  in  their  true  character  nothing  but  reckless  egoism 
and  sloth."36 

Putting  these  two  considerations  side  by  side,  we  conclude 
that  in  secular  conditions  it  is  impossible  to  give  to  Christian 
principles  of  conduct  full  and  uniform  social  effect.  It  is,  e.g., 
impossible  to  get  uniform  results  from  the  application  of  the 
first  ideal  norm  of  the  sex  life,  mutual  responsibility.  The  very 
volume  from  which  I  have  just  quoted  words  of  so  uncom- 
promising a  tendency  admits  this  fact.  The  norm  suggests, 
first,  that  sexual  relations  should  not  be  formed  outside  of  mar- 
riage; and  that  if  that  prior  suggestion  has  been  disregarded, 
such  relations   should  be  followed  by  marriage.     And   such 


34  Cp.  J.  Weiss  on  St.  Matthew  10 :  16,  in  Die  Schriften  des  N.  T. 
35Adveniat  Regnum  Tuum  (Milano,  1912),  p.  456. 
36  Id.,  p.  460. 


SEX    MORALITY   AND   THEOLOGY.  329 

should  indeed  be  the  first  aim  of  the  parties;  but  Christian 
morahty  indicates  further,  on  the  ground  of  the  norm  in  ques- 
tion, that  even  where  this  aim  cannot  be  reaHzed,  the  principle 
of  mutual  responsibility  ought  to  operate,  with  other  results. ^^ 
Nor,  again,  does  the  norm  of  temperance  fix  a  uniform 
standard;  nor  that  of  dignity  enjoin  everywhere  the  same  de- 
tails of  behavior ;  nor  that  of  normality  obliterate  eugenic  and 
other  reasonable  considerations;  nor  that  numbered  5  in  this 
scheme  settle  the  question  of  polygyny  everywhere  and  always 
with  the  same  emphasis  of  negation. 

Further,  it  has  to  be  remembered  that  the  ethical  con- 
cepts which  bear  directly  on  the  sex  life  are  themselves  sub- 
ordinate to  the  larger  ethical  concepts,  justice  and  love,  the 
latter  in  its  theological  sense  of  a  spiritual  principle. ^^  These 
supreme  directive  ideas  oblige  us  to  estimate  particular  appli- 
cations or  pretermissions  of  the  sexual  norms,  in  reference  to 
conditioning  circumstances.  It  was,  for  example,  by  means  of 
this  final  criterion  that  a  comparative  estimate  of  abnormal  and 
of  heterosexual  misdemeanors,  in  respect  of  turpitude,  was 
just  now  effected. 

The  sex  ethic  has  to  be  considered,  finally,  in  relation  to 
theology.  Religious  history  is  full  of  theories  as  to  how  man 
can  put  his  conduct  right  with  God.  Sexual  activities,  for 
reasons  which  we  have  already  remarked  in  our  glance  at  the 
evolution  of  modesty,  would  seem  specially  difficult  to  adjust 
in  this  connection.  Various  unsuccessful,  i.e.,  unethical,  at- 
tempts have  been  made.     In  ancient  Oriental  religion,  on  the 


37  Adv.  Regn.  Tuum,  p.  164.  "Have  I  seduced,  or  tried  to  seduce, 
persons  of  the  other  sex?  If  I  have  done  so,  do  I  try,  as  far  as  I 
can,  to  make  reparation;  to  amend,  as  far  as  I  can,  all  the  conse- 
quences? If  this  is  not  possible,  do  I  at  least  pray  for  the  souls 
ruined  or  lost  in  the  world  by  my  fault?  Do  I  seek  to  save  others 
from  such  injury;  to  make  the  evil  done  serve  as  an  impulse  in  the 
battle  against  evil?" 

38  Cp.  a  paper,  The  Heart  of  Christianity,  by  Professor  Henslow, 
in  The  Modern  Churchman,  vol.  ii.  No.  7. 


S30  SEX    MORALITY   AND   THEOLOGY. 

assumption  that  the  Divine  Being  disHked  the  whole  phe- 
nomenon of  sexuahty,  endeavors  were  made  to  placate  Him, 
either  by  appeasing  His  imagined  jealousy — He  being  anthro- 
pomorphically  conceived  of — by  symbolically  giving  Him  a 
share  in  its  pleasurable  aspects,  and  thus  implicating  Him  in 
the  matter  ;3^  or  by  interposing  between  the  self  and  His  pre- 
sumed displeasure  some  kind  of  propitiatory,  lustrative,  or  de- 
fensive rite.  Modern  society  has  dispensed  with  the  two 
former  classes  of  rites,  but  retains  a  strong  tendency  to  regard 
the  witnessed  or  public  marriage  ceremony  in  the  light  of  a  de- 
fensive rite,  something  to  avert  from  sexual  relations  the  en- 
suing wrath  of  God.  This  is  due  mainly  to  the  erroneous 
identification  which  men,  as  T.  H.  Green  pointed  out,  tend  to 
make,  of  the  mind  of  society  with  the  mind  of  God.  The  pub- 
lic marriage  ceremony  protects  the  parties  to  a  sexual  union 
against  the  criticism  and  displeasure  of  society.  It  is  assumed 
that  this  result  satisfies  the  Will  of  God. 

In  reality,  however  practically  important  the  public  mar- 
riage ceremony  may  be  for  the  regulation  of  social  life, 
Christianity  does  not,  as  we  have  already  seen,-io  in  the  last 
resort  make  the  validity  of  marriage  dependent  upon  it.  Even 
if  the  public  ceremony  were  the  external  part  of  the  sacra- 
ment of  matrimony, — which  it  is  not,'*i — theology  would  have 
to  maintain,  consistently  with  its  general  sacramental  theory, 
that  in  the  last  resort  the  grace  of  the  sacrament  might  exist 
and  operate  independently  of  the  form.  Matrimony  is  an 
ethical  state  which  hallows  sexual  relations  before  God.  The 
conditions  requisite  to  the  genesis  of  that  state  being  fulfilled, 
there  remains,  from  a  theological  point  of  view,  no  need  of  a 
religious  expedient  to  avert  the  wrath  of  God.     Public  mar- 


39  Ploss-Bartels,  op.  cit.,  Bd.  i,  chs.  xvii,  xviii.  There  is  even  a 
reflection  of  this  notion  in  primitive  Biblical  religion.  {Cp.  an  article 
in  II  Rinnovamento,  fasc.  v,  vi,  pp.  427ff.,  based  on  the  work  of  A. 
J.  Reinach  and  Edward  Meyer.) 

40  Supra,  p.  96. 

41  Sanchez,  De  Matr.  Sacr.,  lib.  ii,  disp.  vi. 


SEX    MORALITY   AND   THEOLOGY.  331 

riage  ceremonies  are,  at  most,  social  guarantees,  and  signs  en- 
abling faith  in  the  fact  that  no  element  of  divine  wrath  expects 
appeasement  in  this  connection.  They  do  not  belong  to  the 
ideal  spiritual  essence,  or  inhere  in  the  heart,  of  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  marriage. 

Christianity  has  to  review  all  theories  of  conduct  in  the 
sex  life,  by  the  light  of  its  developed  doctrine  of  God;  which 
is  that  He  is  both  transcendent  and  immanent, — in  St.  Augus- 
tine's sublime  words,  "sine  motu  omnia  transcendentem,  sine 
statu  intra  omnia  manentem."'^^  ]sJq  ethical  norms,  principles, 
precepts  or  theories  can  be  referred  solely  to  the  transcendental 
side  of  theistic  doctrine;  for  that  would  involve  either  crude 
anthropomorphism  or  the  elevation  of  the  ethical  concepts  into 
an  extrarational  sphere;  a  proceeding  which  would  deprive 
them  of  human  interest  and  ultimately  weaken  their  obligation. 

Yet  neither  is  it  adequate  to  construe  them  exclusively  in 
relation  to  Divine  immanence;  for  if  the  transcendental  ele- 
ment in  ethics  be  ignored,  the  character  of  the  norms  tends  to 
become  wholly  human,  mundane,  and  secular;  and  it  will  be 
shown  in  the  following  chapter  that  merely  secular  ethical 
conceptions  cannot  afford  a  satisfactory  working  theory  of  jus- 
tice and  love.  Rivers  are  water;  but  not  all  water  is  rivers. 
Traditional  morality  at  a  given  epoch  may  represent  an  ethical 
counsel  of  God ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  the  whole  ethical 
counsel  of  God  is  contained  in  such  morality.^-" 

Or,  more  fully :  In  sex  ethics,  as  in  ethics  generally,  it  is 
wrong  to  exploit  the  Divind  transcendence  in  such  a  way  as 
Mansel  did,  wholly  separating  an  ethical  concept  as  held  by 
God  from  the  similarly  named  concept  held  by  men.  There 
must  be  "something  in  the  transcendent  consciousness  of  God, 
cognate  with  the  leading  ideas  which  make  up  our  concept  of 
chastity.  At  the  same  time  we  must  not  in  this  connection 
vitiate  our  theism  by  a  crude  anthropomorphism.     Honyman 


42  Aug.  Medit.,  ch.  xii,  S.  2. 

42"This  is,  in  fact,  Ellis's  argument,  put  into  the  language  of  re- 
ligion.    (See  Studies,  vol.  vi,  pp.  367f.) 


332  SEX   MORALITY   AND   THEOLOGY. 

Gillespie's  essay  on  God  furnishes  an  example  of  the  latter  kind 
of  failure.43 

Mankind  has  not  in  fact  sufificiently  realized  the  im- 
manence of  God  in  sex  and  the  sex  life.  The  preponderating 
tendency  has  been  to  try  to  keep  the  phenomena  of  the  sex 
life  hidden  from  God ;  to  think  of  God  as  too  pure  in  Himself 
to  come  in  touch  with  our  sex  lives  at  all ;  and  this  tendency 
has  led  to  men  becoming  either  morbidly  depressed,  or  cynic- 
ally defiant,  about  their  sex  lives.  They  have  either  trembled 
before  God  in  fear  and  despair,  because  of  the  difficulties, 
mistakes,  and  impurities  of  their  sex  lives ;  or  they  have  reck- 
lessly tried  to  put  the  thought  of  religion  from  them,  cast  the 
idea  of  purity  out  of  their  thoughts,  and  given  themselves  to 
uncontrolled  passions  and  lusts. 

That  view  and  its  consequences  are  together  false  and 
lamentable.  The  true  view  is  that  God  is  in  our  sex  lives. 
Purity  realizes  itself,  not  by  holding  apart  from  its  opposite; 
but  by  coming  into  touch  with  this,  and  transforming  it.  Just 
as  the  impurest  women  are  made  pure  again  by  contact  with 
the  purest  women,  as  the  rescue  work  of  our  great  cities  illus- 
trates, so  human  sex  lives,  however  manifoldly  defective  on 
the  side  of  purity,  can  become  pure, — full,  that  is,  of  the  mani- 
fold moral  purpose  described  in  this  chapter; — but  only  by 
God's  coming  into  touch  with  them  and  entering  them.  If  the 
collective  mind  of  a  community,^  while  set  on  the  task  of  solving 
in  detail  the  problems  of  the  sex  life,  is  orientated  toward  the 
realization  of  the  ideals ;  if  it  so  frames  its  legislation  as  to 
allow  for  the  operation  of  the  spiritual  factors  essential  to  the 
process  of  realization ;  then  presumably  that  collective  mind  is 
facing  the  future  with  a  rational  faith,  as  a  religious  individ- 
ual mind  would  do.  It  is  for  that  reason  presumably  making 
itself  acceptable  to  the  transcendent  judgment  of  God;  and 
even  its  mistakes,  like  those  which  a  religious  and  conscientious 


43  The  Argument  a  Priori   for  the  Being  and  the  Attributes  of 
The  Lord  God,  by  W.  H.  Gillespie,  pp.  198ff. 


SEX    MORALITY    AND    THEOLOGY.  333 

young  man  makes  in  forming  his  working  theory  of  Hfe,  will 
be  remedied  and  overruled  for  good. 

It  is  beyond  the  scope  of  the  present  work  to  speculate,  by 
the  light  of  eschatology,'*'^  which  with  general  theology  has  be- 
come scientific  from  the  influence  of  evolutionary  doctrine,  as 
to  what  cosmical  processes  may  contribute  to  the  working  out 
of  moral  judgment.  The  future  may  hold  a  higher  biology, 
and  may  demonstrate  that  reincarnation,  however  crudely  it 
has  been  hitherto  presented,  is,  in  some  form  and  within  some 
limits,  a  true  conception ;  and  is  one  of  the  contributing  fac- 
tors to  the  cosmical  result. 


44  Eschatology  is  the  province  of  theology  dealing  with  final  issues. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Sexual  Morality. 

Rational  Ethics  and  Religion — Spiritual  and  Supramundane  Origin 
of  Ethical  Religion— Human  Cognition  of  the  Transcendent  Ethical 
Authority — Rights  of  Criticism  in  Ethics — True  Nature  of  Moral  Action 
—Autonomy  of  the  Will — Rational  Reception  of  the  Imperative — Primi- 
tive Commands  were  Negative — Recapitulation — The  Supreme  Ethical 
Concept  of  the  Sex  Life — The  Cognition  of  Ideas — No  Really  Self- 
evident  Truths — Intuition — The  Inheriting  and  Estimating  of  Moral 
Values— Objectivity  of  Moral  Concepts— Their  Perfect  Concrete  Mani- 
festation— The  Metaphysic  of  Ethics  Reveals  God  and  Leads  to  the 
Incarnation  of  Jesus  Christ. 

It  was  shown  in  the  previous  chapter  that  extra-human 
impulses  to  morahty  already  existed,  and  were  ready  to  operate 
in  humanity  at  its  earliest  appearance  on  this  planet.  We  saw 
how  the  sex  ethic  objectified  by  the  social  consciousness  at  a 
given  epoch,  is  the  product  of  a  inanifold  process,  the  stages  of 
which  were  reviewed. 

It  may  be  objected  that  ethical  concepts  are  by  this  reason- 
ing fined  down,  not  merely  into  germinal  principles,  but  into 
an  ultimate  vanishing  point.  Such  an  objection  ignores  the 
prime  truth,  ex  nihilo  nihil  fit.  The  developing  concepts,  not 
being  self-creating,  can  contain  no  element  which  is  not  poten- 
tially or  conceptually  present  in  a  primordial  source ;  and  since 
moral  concepts  or  moral  sentiments  are  complex  and  spiritual 
in  their  nature,  their  primordial  source  or  ultimate  origin  is  not 
to  be  found  in  an  order  of  being  which  is  simple  and  physical ; 
for  if  that  order  contains  nothing  of  a  spiritual  nature  or  cog- 
nate with  the  spiritual,  it  cannot  create  or  give  rise  to  things 
spiritual.  Hence,  although  matter  has  been  made  the  receptacle 
of  the  evolutional  principles  of  ethical  sentiments  and  concepts, 
and  the  medium  of  their  development,  their  ultimate  origin 
and  creative  source  has  to  be  sought  in  an  unestimated  spiritual 
(334) 


THE   MORAL   UNIVERSE.  335 

entity  antecedent  to  matter  and  the  physical  order.  It  is  a 
lowly  enough  spring  whence  the  current  of  human  morality 
takes  its  visible  rise,  and  many  a  streamlet  must  enter  it  before 
it  becomes  a  great  river ;  but  all  those  waters  are  supplied  from 
the  atmospheric  reservoir,  from  a  source  transcending  the  body 
of  the  stream. 

Thus  the  idea  of  Goodness  as  subjective,  immanent  in  the 
soul,  and  working  out  its  realization  by  the  experience  of 
ages,  and  that  of  Goodness  as  objective  and  transcendent,  are 
not  mutually  exclusive.  Just  as  the  two  notions  of  Freewill 
and  Determinism  may  be  both  true  (as  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 
argues, 1  and  as  Westermarck,  with  something  of  a  constructive 
theory,  maintains), ^  so,  in  the  formation  of  ethical  ideas,  sub- 
jectivism in  the  conception  does  not  negate  the  objectivity  of 
the  concepts. 

The  manifold  material  which  ethics  labors  to  systematize, 
is  designated  the  moral  universe  or  moral  world.  According 
to  what  has  been  already  advanced,  this  phrase  is  no  mere 
metaphor.  It  expresses  the  transsubjective  element,  the  aspect 
of  objective  reality  in  morals. ^ 

The  resulting  notion  of  moral  authority  compels  the 
inference  that  particular  manifestations  of  such  authority  do 
not  require  uncritical  acceptance  by  the  human  will.  Over  the 
moral  universe  there  stands  indeed — preponderant  considera- 
tions suggest  this  conclusion^* — a  personal  imponent  authority, 
perfect  in  itself,  but  cognizable  in  the  world  through  media  in 
which  it  is  immanent,  the  media  of  the  soul's  environment,  the 
manifold  data  of  experience,  the  events,  effects,  developments, 
which  are  seen  to  stand  in  some  relation  to  conduct,  and  to 
render  possible  the  estimation  of  it. 

These  media  are,  however,  imperfect  vehicles  for  the 
transmission  to  the  finite  consciousness  of  the  higher  volitions. 


1  Life  and  Matter,  pp.  175ff. 

2  Origin  and  Development  of  the  Moral  Ideas,  vol.  i,  pp.  320fif. 

3  C/J.  W.  D.  Niven,  art.  Good  and  Evil,  in  Hastings,  op.  cit.,  vol. 
vi,  sees,  iii  and  iv. 

3a  See  Additional  Note  I  on  Belief  in  God. 


336  COGNITION    OF   THE   IMPERATIVE. 

It  may  well  be  that  a  transcendent  consciousness  willing  to 
reveal  its  ethical  nature  is  compelled,  by  self-imposed  condi- 
tions, to  manipulate  these  media,  to  make  them  do,  as  it  were ; 
just  as,  on  the  other  side,  the  apperceptive  faculties  of  the 
recipient  or  cognizing  subject  are  not  ab  initio  fully  adequate 
to  the  task  of  cognition.  Therefore  moral  ideas,  as  appre- 
hended from  time  to  time,  may  be  recast;  moral  judgments 
may  be  held  in  reserve  or  amended.  And  even  where  the  moral 
law  is  made  known  to  the  soul  by  what  seems  the  most  direct 
method  of  communication  with  the  transcendent  authority, 
viz.,  mystical  intuition,  it  is  impossible,  in  estimating  the  result- 
ing moral  idea,  to  ignore  the  inherent  imperfection  both  of  the 
medium  of  transmission  and  of  the  cognizing  subject.  The 
notion  of  a  code  of  morals  fully  and  finally  drawn  up  by  trans- 
cendent authority,  and  promulgated  through  a  chosen  agent, 
has  had  to  be  largely  modified,  as  spiritual  processes  have 
become  analyzed  and  understood.  It  is  now  perceived  that 
such  ethical  convictions  as  have  come  to  the  religious  leaders 
of  mankind  through  mystical  intuitions  have  yet  a  relation  to, 
and  are  in  a  measure  the  product  of,  the  Time-spirit.  They 
are  conceived  by  a  transcendent  force,  but  they  are  formed  in 
the  pregnant  soul  of  the  community ;  and  the  labors  of  those 
men  of  genius  who  at  length  give  them  adequate  articulate 
expression  are  but  as  the  pains  of  the  birth  effort  against  which 
the  body  of  the  community  in  general  cries  out,  while  yet  it 
subconsciously  desires  the  new  thing  which  those  birth  pains 
procure.  Those  faculties  of  the  mind  by  which  it  perceives 
messages  and  visions  of  moral  import  appear  to  act  analogously 
to  the  faculties  of  conscious  reasoning,  which  produce  new 
thoughts,  not  ex  nihilo,  but  from  the  surrounding  thought 
material.  Subjective  preparation  for  mandatory  visions  ap- 
pears to  take  place  in  the  recipient's  subconscious  mind. 
The  environAient  of  St.  Catherine  of  Siena  prepares  her 
subconscious  mind  for  the  experience  of  a  mandatory  vision, 
which  she  announces  as  a  Divine  message  mystically  received. 
St.  Brigitta,  in  a  different  environment  has,  in  reference  to  the 


COGNITION    OF    THE   IMPERATIVE.  ZZ7 

same  subject,  a  vision  contradicting  that  of  St.  Catherine.'* 
Thus,  if  there  be  an  objective  element  at  all  in  such  mandatory 
visions,  it  does  not  at  any  rate  suggest  the  interposition  of  a 
Divine  Will  acting  in  the  moral  world  independently  of  human 
co-operation  in  the  establishment  of  the  resulting  ethical 
propositions. 

In  fact,  the  doctrine  of  a  transcendent  moral  authority 
wholly  suprarational,  and  expressing  itself  in  decisions  which, 
by  whatever  method  given,  are  and  forever  remain  beyond  the 
reach  of  criticism,  destroys  the  concept  of  a  moral  world  alto- 
gether. For  what  conclusion  can  be  drawn  from  the  proposi- 
tion that  the  transcendent  authority,  using  an  individual  man  or 
a  church  or  body  of  men  as  the  organ  of  its  expression,  ordains 
morality  and  requires  obedience  to  it  on  principles  which  the 
inhabitants  of  the  moral  world  can  never  apprehend,  with 
which  they  can  never  come  into  conscious  touch  ?  Nothing  less 
than  that  moral  action  is  essentially  a  mechanical  process,  a 
blind  contact  with  impulsion,  a  motion  of  the  same  kind  as  the 
only  motion  of  which  dead  matter  is  capable.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 
has  drawn  attention  to  the  fact  that  matter  is  moved  only  by  the 
application  of  force  from  behind  ;^  for  a  little  reflection  shows 
that  pulling  is  essentially  the  same  thing  as  pushing,  inasmuch 
as  the  force  of  the  pulling  agent  in  reality  pushes  a  portion  of 
the  dead  matter.  Matter  has  no  inherent  power  of  following  a 
lead:  it  does  not  move  to  meet  the  agent  drawing  it.  It  is 
simply  shoved  along.  If,  then,  the  inhabitants  of  the  moral 
world  are  being  forced  into  obeying  laws  which  they  can  never 
see  the  use  of,  the  means  of  procuring,  nay,  more,  of  eternally 
guaranteeing,  their  obedience,  can  only  be  physical  force,  the 
same  force  as  acts  on  dead  matter, — and  that  kind  of  force  is 
indeed  the  instrument  which  both  secular  and  ecclesiastical 
governments  have  made  use  of  to  this  end,  partly  in  historic 
criminal  law,  and  partly  by  way  of  theological  menace.     The 


"*  Cheetham,  Mecli?eval  Church  History,  p.  110. 
5  The  vis  a  tcrgo. 


338  AUTONOMY   OF   THE   WILL. 

whole  process  is  not  merely  analogous  to,  but  generically  the 
same  as,  the  pushing  of  dead  matter  in  a  certain  direction,  or 
the  training  of  a  tree  into  a  certain  form,  by  the  application  of 
external  pressure.  In  short,  this  conception  of  the  moral  sys- 
tem ignores  consciousness;  for  the  suprarational  laws  have 
nothing  to  do,  and  can  never  have  anything  to  do,  with  con- 
sciousness. 

Therefore  the  true  view  of  the  moral  world  essentially 
contains  the  idea  of  the  developing  autonomy  of  the  will. 
In  the  psychological  series  volition,  as  has  already  been 
observed,  is  the  final  stage  of  the  soul's  apprehension  of  the 
objective  sequences  and  laws  of  the  surrounding  moral  world. 
It  is  the  issue  of  the  psychic  process  of  which  instinct,  reason, 
and  emotion  are  the  imperfectly  distinguished  aspects.  There- 
fore the  specific  decisions  of  moral  authority,  and  even  the 
purposes  of  the  transcendent  authority  itself,  cannot  be  thought 
of  as  absolutely  and  finally  inaccessible  to  rational  criticism. 
In  the  moral  world,  authority  is  forever  proving  its  claims  at 
the  bar  of  reason ;  and  since  the  horizon  of  the  perceptive  con- 
sciousness continually  expands,  its  combining  or  reasoning 
faculty  is  compelled  to  view  specific  claims  of  moral  authority 
in  the  new  light  afforded  by  larger  conjunctions  of  facts  and 
objects,  and  by  consequence  to  evaluate  those  claims  afresh. 

And  this  fundamental  principle  of  the  moral  order,  the 
critical  or  rational  reception  of  the  imperative,  holds  good  in 
regard  to  both  positive  and  negative  commands.  The  earliest 
commands  were  negative ;  for  primarily  a  creature  develops  its 
positive  instincts  by  imitation ;  what  is  required  of  a  mandatory 
nature  is  negative,  and  appears  in  primitive  moral  systems  as 
the  idea  of  tapu,  or  prohibition.  Some  of  the  prohibitions  of 
the  primitive  tapu  systems  are  temporarily  sanctioned  and  sup- 
ported by  utilitarian  reasons  which  become  modified  or  wholly 
disappear  with  increasing  knowledge.  The  social  consciousness 
rejects  in  the  long  run  such  precepts,  whatever  sanction  may 
be  claimed  for  them,  as  cannot  justify  their  existence  as  factors 
in  progress ;  or,  to  use  a  profounder  phrase,  as  principles  of 
life. 


THE    RELIGIOUS    FACTOR.  339 

The  religious  sense  is,  however,  an  indispensable  factor 
in  this  ethical  gold-washing.  Professor  Forel,  in  his  well- 
known  work,  rejects  the  possibility  of  deducing  a  scheme  of 
sexual  morals  from  religious  conceptions,  and  derives  his  prop- 
ositions from  an  inductive  study  of  the  facts  and  phenomena 
of  the  sex  life  in  humanity.^*  He  estimates  sexual  conduct  by 
reference  to  the  effects  it  produces,  or  tends  to  produce,  upon 
social  welfare,  and  classifies  acts  as  positive  (good),  indifferent, 
and  negative  (bad),  according  to  this  scheme.  This  principle 
of  ethical  valuation  would  be  acceptable  were  it  not  that  in 
Forel's  presentation  of  it  the  religious  problem  is  not  solved 
but  evaded.  This  is  not  the  place  for  reviving  time-worn 
discussions  about  the  indifferent  in  morality ;  but  it  should  be 
observed  that  a  utilitarian  estimate  wholly  dissociated  from 
religion  does  not  illuminate  the  social  prospect  sufficiently  far. 
The  issues  of  conduct  are  often  shrouded  in  obscurity.  While 
it  is  true  that  (as  Forel  urges)  the  will  of  God  has  often  been 
misinterpreted,  it  does  not  follow  that  there  is  no  will  of  God 
to  know. 

The  argument  may  at  this  point  be  conveniently  recapit- 
ulated and  restated.  Both  the  moral  and  the  physical  worlds  or 
orders  have  an  objective  basis  of  being.  Their  existence  does 
not  depend  on  the  finite  consciousness  in  any  of  its  forms.  If 
the  objectivity  of  those  worlds  and  their  reality  in  relation  to 
the  finite  consciousness  be  denied,  then  the  approximative  con- 
sent of  the  cognitions  of  them,  made  by  forms  of  the  finite 
consciousness,  remains  unaccounted  for,  and  all  knowledge  of 
the  aforesaid  worlds  is  reduced  to  the  nullity  of  illusion. 

There  are  at  the  same  time  vast  differences  in  the  sub- 
jective cognitions  of  the  finite  consciousness,  in  respect  of  both 
the  physical  and  the  moral  world.  To  the  consciousness  of 
some  finite  beings  the  stars  are  fixed  points  of  light ;  to  that  of 
others  they  are  distant  suns ;  others,  again,  do  not  perceive 
them    at    all ;    and    the    differences    in    moral  '  cognitions    are 

5a  Die  sexuelle  Frage,  ch.  xiv  (ed.  10,  ch.  xv). 


340  THE    NATURE    OF    IDEAS. 

analogous.  But  these  are  variations  in  the  cognitions,  and  in 
no  way  disprove  the  objectivity — in  relation  to  finiteness — of 
the  objects  or  concepts  cognized. 

It  is  time  now  to  apply  these  principles  of  interpretation  to 
the  ethical  side  of  the  sex  life.  First,  let  the  supreme  ethical 
concept  of  the  sex  life  be  itself  considered,  the  concept  of 
purity.  It  is  contained  in  the  yet  more  comprehensive  notion 
of  goodness;  and  its  objectivity  in  the  moral  world  goes  pari 
passu  with  that  of  such  concepts  as  redness  and  sweetness  in 
the  physical  world.  We  stand,  then,  facing  the  question.  In 
what  sense  can  objectivity  be  ascribed  to  ideas? 

The  thought-process  abstraction  is  not  equivalent  to  nulli- 
fication. It  transfers  entities  into  the  noumenal  sphere,  which 
affords  at  least  as  permanent,  and  it  may  be  a  more  permanent 
basis  of  being  than  the  phenomenal  does.  For  when  entities 
have  been  thought  in  abstraction  they  acquire  an  existence  inde- 
pendent of  the  "concrete  mass  of  events  which  changes  from 
moment  to  moment."® 

We  can  cognize  ideas  only  through  perceiving  their  con- 
crete embodiments.  We  know  redness  and  sweetness  by  per- 
ceiving red  and  sweet  things.  Our  knowledge  of  redness  and 
sweetness  is  thus  limited  by  a  great  many  conditions ;  some 
conditions  in  the  things  which  manifest  redness  and  sweetness 
to  us,  and  some  conditions  in  ourselves  who  look  at  them.  For, 
in  accordance  with  what  has  been  already  observed,  we  are  only 
in  approximate  agreement  as  to  the  redness  or  sweetness  of 
anything.  But  what  is  the  relation  of  abstract  ideas  to  that 
eternal  conscious  entity  whose  existence  we  have  seen  reason 
to  postulate?  It  is  not  dependent  on  the  phenomenal  world  for 
its  grasp  of  abstract  ideas.  It  can  form  and  hold  an  idea,  not 
as  with  us  after  cognizing  it  in  the  concrete,  but  before  giving 
it  concrete  expression.  And  so  far  as  experience  shows,  God's 
will  has  been  to  give  concrete  expression,  or  to  allow  it  to  be 
given,  to  certain  ideas ;  to  actualize  those  and  not  others.    As  I 


^'Joseph,  Iiitrod.  to  Logic,  p.  440. 


THE    COGNITION    OF   IDEAS.  341 

have  observed  elsewhere,  He  might  conceivably  have  formed, 
held  and  actualized  other  ideas.'''  Had  this  occurred,  such  ideas 
v^^ould  have  been  transsubjective  and  real  in  relation  to  any 
other  consciousness  that  might  subsequently  have  apperceived 
them.  If  He  has  not  done  so, — as,  e.g.,  in  the  case  of  ideas 
which,  valued  from  our  standpoint,  are  evil  or  absurd, — this 
fact  is  referable  to  His  will. 

The  just  conclusion  is,  therefore,  that  ideas  are  real  only 
if  they  have  somewhere  an  existential  basis  of  will.^  Will  is 
the  fundamental  fact  of  existence.  Now,  since  goodness  in 
various  aspects,  love,  truth,  holiness,  is  as  a  fact  of  experience 
kept  in  being  without  depending  for  its  existence  on  the  will  of 
particular  men  or  communities  of  men,  or  even — as  we  saw  in 
the  previous  chapter — of  humanity  in  general,  the  inference 
is  warranted  that  it  rests  upon  an  extra-human  higher  will ; 
and  since  that  will  could  not  have  come  into  existence  ex  nihilo, 
it  either  is  itself  the  will  of  the  eternal  existent,  or  is  grounded 
upon  it. 

Our  cognitions  being  hindered  and  limited,  we  cannot  be 
individually  sure  that  we  are  right  in  attributing  to  the 
particular  objects  of  our  cognition  the  qualities  which  we  predi- 
cate of  them.  I  cannot  be  sure  that  the  thing  which  I  think 
has  redness,  really  has  it.  The  only  proof  of  the  correctness 
of  my  predication,  that  I  can  find,  is  a  cumulative  proof ;  it  is 
derived  from  the  assents  of  a  number  of  cognizing  subjects, 
that  such  and  such  a  quality  is  to  be  predicated  of  the  object 
cognized.  These  assents  in  combination  form  a  collective 
assent,  or  a  consent. 

But  now  let  us  consider  the  formation  of  human  assents  to 
propositions.  The  faculty  of  abstracting  the  objectivity 
perceived  by  means  of  the  concrete  is  germinally  present  in  the 
most  primitive  and  elementary  consciousness,  in  such  em- 
bryonic rationality  as  is  found  in  children  or  in  undeveloped 

'''  The  Interpreter,  vol.  ix.  No.  3. 


vi,  p.  320b 


Ihe  Interpreter,  vol.  ix.  No.  3. 

See  W.  D.  Niven,  art.  Good  and  Evil,  in  Hastings,  op.  cit.,  vol. 

120b. 


342  THE    COGNITION    OF   IDEAS. 

races;  and  this  faculty  grows  till  its  use  in  reasoning  becomes 
so  habitual  as  to  be  unnoticed  by  the  user  himself.  We  can 
thus  affirm  that  the  objectivity  and  inherent  reality  of  all 
truths,  even  of  mathematical  truths,  becomes  known  to  the  cog- 
nizing human  subject. 

The  phrase  "a  self-evident  truth"  is  inexact. 

All  objects  are  presented  to  the  consciousness  to  be 
cognized;  and  all  propositions  come  before  the  consciousness 
to  be  examined.  There  is  no  truth  or  proposition  which  re- 
leases the  mind  from  the  necessity  of  examining  it.  The  term 
"self-evident"  as  applied  to  a  proposition  really  means  that,  as 
that  proposition  is  examined  by  the  cognizing  subject  from  each 
point  of  view,  and  by  each  method  of  mentation  possible  to 
it,  it  is  seen  to  be  true ;  and  its  truth  receives  accordingly  an 
ever-increasing  cumulative  assent. 

"Intuition"  again,  is  an  unscientific  term,  if  taken  to  mean 
that  the  perceptive  faculty  of  the  generic  human  consciousness 
is  in  any  way  absolved  from  the  labor  of  testing  and  examining 
that  which  is  presented  to  it,  in  order  to  find  out  values.  A 
rapid  power  of  combining  perceptions  or  ideas  is  indeed  found 
in  individuals ;  which  may  be  described  as  an  intuitive  faculty ; 
but  this  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the  fully  developed  in- 
tuitive faculty  assumed  by  the  older  psychology  to  belong  essen- 
tially and  ab  initio  to  the  whole  of  mankind. 

Thus  the  concept  of  squareness  is  "intuitively"  perceived 
only  by  minds  of  sufficient  development ;  and  is  reached  by  less 
developed  minds  only  by  way  of  tentative  perceptions ;  and 
thus  the  intuitive  assent  has  been  evolutionally  preceded  by 
innumerable  roughly  approximative  assents.  Modern  psy- 
chology has  ascertained  that  people  differ  in  regard  to  the 
capacity  of  perceiving  a  square;  and  since  the  abstract  can  be 
apprehended  only  through  the  concrete,  the  inductive  appre- 
hension of  particular  squares  precedes  the  recognition  of  the 
objective  truth  of  the  abstract  notion  of  squareness. 

There  is  no  primordial,  necessary  intuition  of  squareness 
in   the   human    mind.      Squareness   belongs   to   the   universe; 


THE    COGNITION    OF    IDEAS.  343 

it  is  one  of  its  constituent  ideas;  and  cognizing  subjects 
have  to  find  out  and  to  recognize  the  fact  of  its  so  belonging. 

Just  so  in  morals.  There  are  no  "self-evident"  truths. 
There  are  no  primordial  perfect  intuitions.  The  human  con- 
sciousness has  slowly  and  gradually  apperceived  and  tested  that 
which  has  come  before  it,  object  or  proposition  or  idea.  It  be- 
gan in  the  prehistoric  past  to  test  the  values  phylogenetically 
transmitted  to  it  by  the  lower  and  simpler  forms  of  conscious- 
ness out  of  which  it  had  come.  It  found  in  those  values  the 
germs  of  morality. 

Thereafter,  by  a  combination  of  assents,  by  a  cumulative 
proof  inductively  arrived  at,  men  come  to  comprehend  ration- 
ally the  component  notions  of  the  moral  universe  as  they  ap- 
prehend the  parts  and  relations  of  the  physical  universe.  All 
the  variations  in  their  apprehension  of  these  notions  are  due 
to  the  limitations  of  the  cognitive  faculty,  and  to  the  conditions 
of  the  entities  in  which  the  ethical  notions  find  concrete  ex- 
pression. 

The  leading  moral  ideas,  accordingly,  stand  over  against 
the  human  consciousness,  on  the  firm  ground  of  transsub- 
jective  reality.  Anteriorly  to  us,  independently  of  our  con- 
sciousness, Goodness,  Love,  Truth,  Purity  are.  They  are 
not  mere  illusions  created  by  our  religious  and  ethical  fancy. 
And  yet  we  do  not  fully  and  perfectly  see  them  and  know  them. 
We  cannot  be  sure  that  our  impressions  of  these  ideas  corre- 
spond exactly  with  the  reality  behind  the  impressions.  Some 
societies  have  no  generic  word  for  chastity,  some  none  for  love ; 
yet  it  cannot  be  inferred  that  the  notions  which  those  terms 
express,  thereby  fall  out  of  existence. 

Thus  no  definitive  answer  is  forthcoming  to  the  question, 
What  is  Purity;  or  What  are  Love  and  Truth,  in  themselves? 
W^hat  are  they  like  to  some  being  who  can  see  them,  not 
through  such  imperfect  media  of  perception  as  we  possess,  but 
unconditioned  and  undimmed? 

But  human  interest  is  not  fully  awakened  by  abstract  ideas, 
not  even  when  accompanied  by  the  reflection  that  they  are  held 


344  THE   COGNITION   OF   IDEAS. 

in  real  existence  by  the  will  of  God.  Love,  Truth,  and  Purity 
cannot  be  dealt  with  solely  as  abstract  concepts.  They  are  not 
like  impalpable  vapors  everywhere  diffused  and  never  caught. 
There  is  only  one  way  in  which  we  can  adequately  think  of 
them ;  and  that  is  in  connection  with  persons  or  beings.  If 
there  is  beauty,  something  or  someone  must  be  beautiful;  if 
there  is  redness,  something  or  someone  must  be  red,  and 
similarly  with  ethical  concepts.  To  say,  then,  that  Goodness 
— Love,  Truth,  Purity — is  spiritually  and  objectively  real,  is 
the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  there  is  some  Person  or  Being 
who  is  absolutely,  in  a  manner  dependent  in  no  way  on  condi- 
tions, loving,  true,  and  pure. 

Most  of  the  Love,  Truth,  and  Purity  that  we  discern  in 
life  are  conditioned.  They  maintain  their  existence  in  a  per- 
son's life,  if  the  conditions  are  favorable.  But  those  condi- 
tions may  change.  Constitution  and  temperament  undergo 
changes;  the  progress  of  life  puts  us  in  new  circumstances, 
and  brings  new  forces  to  bear  upon  us.  How  will  it  be  then 
with  Love,  Truth,  and  Purity?  Not  long  since  I  heard  a  man 
say  that  he  had  never  been  drunk,  and  never  had  had  any 
temptation  to  get  drunk.  That  man's  goodness  was  dependent 
on  the  favorableness  of  the  conditions  which  had  made  it  in 
that  respect  so  easy  to  him ;  and  there  is  no  saying  what  will 
become  of  his  goodness,  if  the  conditions  change. 

It  is  thus  clear  that  the  absolutely  good  Being,  the  Being 
whose  Love,  Truth,  and  Purity  are  unconditioned,  must  be 
thought  of  by  us,  not  as  if  he  were  completely  separated  from 
the  conditions,  favorable  or  unfavorable,  which  surround 
Love,  Truth,  and  Purity  as  we  are  able  to  cognize  them ;  but  as 
if,  whatever  the  conditions  may  be,  he  continues  recognizably 
loving,  true,  and  pure.  For  if  we  think  of  the  absolutely  good 
Being  as  quite  apart  from  the  conditions  of  goodness,  that  is  to 
say,  as  out  of  touch  with  humanity's  own  experiences  in  its 
efforts  to  possess  goodness,  then  we  are  putting  that  Being  out 
of  our  moral  world  altogether,  and  ascribing  to  him  a  Love, 
Truth,  and  Purity  which  are  in  no  conceivable  way  cognate 


THE   DIVINE   WORD   INCARNATE.  345 

with  our  own,  and  which  consequently  can  have  no  meaning 
for  us  at  all.  On  the  contrary,  that  Being  is  in  the  conditions ; 
and  yet  he  is  independent  of  them.  He  has  to  be  thought  of  as 
existing  in  all  unfavorable  conditions ;  as  surrounded  by  all 
hatred  and  all  coldness  and  indifference,  and  yet  himself  not 
ceasing  to  love ;  as  beguiled  with  all  the  most  subtle  lies,  and  yet 
thinking  the  thought  which  is  true,  i.e.,  remaining  what  he 
eternally  conceives  himself  to  be ;  as  feeling  upon  himself  the 
full  force  of  all  impure  desires,  and  yet  remaining  inwardly  and 
spiritually  pure.  So  only  can  that  Being  be  absolutely  good; 
so  only  can  we  feel  confidence  that  his  goodness  does  not 
change. 

Early  theological  thought  was  not  satisfied  with  Philo's 
doctrine  of  the  Logos,  a  conception  which  gathered  into  itself 
the  Platonic  ideas.  It  desiderated  a  concrete  personal  expres- 
sion of  the  moral  ideas.^  Such  an  expression  did  not  need  to 
be  imagined.  It  lay  close  at  hand.  Its  discovery  was  a  matter 
of  the  interpretation  of  facts. 

Ethical  inquiry  in  fact  leads  us  to  the  Christian  doctrine  of 
God, — God  immanent  in  the  world,  existing  in  and  through  the 
world's  changing  conditions;  and  God  transcendent,  maintain- 
ing Himself  by  His  own  inherent  power,  independent  of  the 
world's  changing  conditions.  And  it  brings  us  to  the  doctrine 
of  Jesus  Christ ;  for  absolute  goodness  receives  its  highest 
human  manifestation  in  Him;  in  such  sort  that  He  knows  and 
feels  all  the  conditions,  favorable  or  unfavorable,  in  which 
humanity  has  to  realize  its  ideas  of  Love,  Truth,  and  Purity ; 
while  yet  such  knowledge  and  such  feeling  do  not  adversely 
affect  the  Love,  Truth,  and  Purity  in  Him. 

And  so  it  leads  us  to  the  true  doctrine  of  humanity,  the 
point  of  moral  union  between  God  and  man ;  not  merely  a  his- 
torical doctrine  to  be  handed  down  from  one  generation  to 
another,  but  a  living  doctrine  which  fulfills  itself  in  men  and 
women,  though  they  may  have  but  a  confused  consciousness 


^  Cp.  W.  D.  Mackenzie,  art.  Jesus  Christ,  in  Hastings,  op.  cit.,  vol. 
vii,  p.  531. 


346  PERSONAL   PURITY. 

of  how  it  influences  them,  and  a  very  inadequate  power  of 
expressing  it  in  words. 

We  saw  just  now,  in  regard  to  the  Love,  Truth,  and  Purity 
manifested  in  humanity,  that  people  discern  those  things  differ- 
ently. •  Some  have  a  broader  and  a  deeper  view  of  Love  than 
others.  Some  have  a  keener  insight  into  the  nature  of  Truth 
than  others.  Some  perceive  the  principle,  the  spirit  of  Purity 
more  inwardly  than  others.  And  in  the  progress  of  evolution, 
society's  whole  view  of  Love,  Truth,  and  Purity  becomes  larger 
and  more  luminous. 

It  is  important  for  the  understanding  of  sex  problems  to  bear 
this  fact  in  mind,  but  it  will  be  yet  more  instructive  to  glance  at  the 
concrete  expression  which  Purity  receives  in  the  sex  lives  of  individuals. 
Very  largely,  as  we  have  seen,  personal  purity  is  a  matter  of  favorable 
material,  social  and  economic  conditions;  and  students  of  the  causes  of 
vice  and  crime  know  quite  well  that  it  is  the  failure  or  the  absence  of 
healthy  and  normal  conditions,  either  primarily  in  the  person  himself 
or  in  his  environment,  which  produces  vice  and  crime:  Any  expert 
in  social  science  will  tell  us,  for  example,  that  the  condition  of  poverty 
has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  prostitution. 

But,  then,  human  purity  does  at  times  reach  a  higher  standard 
than  this;  for  sometimes  people,  even  when  the  conditions  of  their 
purity  change,  will  fight  desperately  to  keep  the  vision  of  purity  that 
they  have  seen  in  their  own  souls.  They  will  still  try  to  retain  purity, 
just  as  they  will  still  try  to  realize  love  and  to  follow  truth,  when 
all  things  in  them  and  around  them  are  becoming  more  and  more 
adverse  to  such  observance.  Here  they  leave  behind  them  the  con- 
ditioned purity,  and  draw  nearer  to  the  absolute,  which  exists  whatever 
the  conditions  may  be. 

And  this  is  the  outcome  in  life  and  conduct,  of  the  moral  self- 
revelation  of  God,  through  Jesus  Christ,  to  man.  For  there  is  a  philo- 
sophical sense  in  which  God  is  in  men  at  all  times ;  and  there  is 
a  theological  sense  in  which  He  is  in  them  on  occasions  when  they 
gather  together  for  worship  and  sacrament ;  but  in  a  yet  nobler  sense 
He  is  in  them,  just  when  their  soul-conditions  seem  least  favor- 
able to  His  indwelling;  when  all  things  are  made  hard  for  goodness, 
and  yet  goodness  struggles  to  live.  And  although  mankind  cannot  as 
yet  attain  to  a  full  and  clear  vision  of  the  objective  Purity,  much  is  to 
be  learned  even  from  these  partial  glimpses,  these  imperfect  cognitions, 
afforded  by  the  sex  lives  of  individuals.  We  shall  employ  this  method 
in  the  following  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 
The  Virgin  Martyrs. 

Virginity  in  the  New  Testament — The  Virgin  Martyrs  in  Art  and 
History — Virginity  in  Pagan  Rome — The  Christian  Persecutions — The 
Peril  to  Virginity — Condemnation  of- Christian  Women  to  the  Lupa- 
naria— Outraging  of  Virgins — The  Spiritual  Permanence  of  Virginity 
— Changes  in  the  Social  Estimate  of  Virginity — Survivals  of  Super- 
stition in  that  Estimate — Formation  of  a  Deeper  View — The  Virgin's 
Aureole  and  the  Conditions  of  its  Attainment. 

The  subject  which  claims  our  attention  is  virginity,  the 
esteem  in  which  it  is  generally,  though  not  universally,  held  by 
communities,  and  the  obligation  inferred  in  moral  theory  from 
that  esteem,  the  obligation,  namely,  to  infinite  self-command, 
"grenzenlose  Selbst-bescheidung,"i  in  regard  of  the  sexual 
nature. 

The  present  chapter  will  show  that  such  infinite  self-com- 
mand has  been,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  exemplified  and  illus- 
trated in  humanity's  experience;  and  will  draw  from  those 
examples  a  significant  inference  which  may  be  of  service  in 
the  ethical  evaluation  of  sexual  purity,  and  indicate  the  direc- 
tion of  that  idea's  evolution. 

The  New  Testament  contains  three  passages  in  which  vir- 
ginity is  predicated  of  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ. ^  I  have 
elsewhere  in  this  volume  expressed  a  preference  for  the 
mystical  and  symbolical,  as  opposed  to  the  literal  interpretation 
of  this  New  Testament  idea  of  virginity;  and  the  present 
chapter  will  make  it  further  clear  that  to  apprehend  the  essen- 
tial character  of  Christian  virginity,  a  more  penetrating  ethical 
insight  is  required  than  that  which  literalism  by  itself  is 
capable  of. 


1  Forster. 

2  11  Cor.  11:2;  Eph.  5:27;  Rev.  14:4. 

(347) 


348  THE   VIRGIN    MARTYRS. 

I  propose  to  consider  virginity  from  a  point  of  view 
afiforded  by  Church  history,  to  draw  near  to  the  luminous  cen- 
tral phenomenon,  along  a  new  avenue  of  approach,  the  exist- 
ence of  which  has  been  demonstrated  comparatively  recently 
by  the  labors  of  scholars.^ 

In  the  ecclesiastical  calendars  are  a  number  of  black-letter 
Saints'  Days ;  and  a  fair  proportion  of  these  days  are  marked 
by  the  names  of  women,  with  the  letters  V.  and  M.  (Virgin 
and  Martyr)  appended.  There  are  eight  such  names  in  the 
Calendar  of  the  Anglican  Prayerbook. 

Ecclesiastical  history  has  in  times  past  permitted  her 
idealizing  spirit  to  deal  freely  with  this  group  of  holy  names, 
the  names  of  the  virgins.  She  has  surrounded  them  with  the 
mellow  light  of  legend.  Nay,  it  has  happened  most  often, 
whenever  there  has  been  occasion  to  recall  these  names  to  the 
consciousness  of  the  modern  Christian  world,  to  make  them 
live  before  men's  eyes  as  figures  rising  out  of  the  far  past ;  that 
History  has  stepped  aside  altogether,  yielding  her  place  and 
function  to  Art ;  so  that  practically  all  that  the  churchgoers  of 
today  think  or  imagine  about  the  primitive  Virgin  Martyrs 
is  summed  up  for  them  in  the  familiar  pictures  and  stained 
windows  in  which  those  saints  are  figured. 

Art  is  concerned  with  the  external  representation  of  in- 
ward realities ;  and  Art  is  therefore  true  to  its  function,  when 
it  tries  to  make  the  figure  of  the  woman  visibly  reflect  or 
embody  the  purity  which  tradition  predicates  of  her.  Art 
portrays  the  Virgin  Martyr  in  the  semblance  which  seems  to 
harmonize  best  with  the  notion  of  her  purity ;  and  thus  in  the 
pictures  of  the  ideal  Virgin  Martyr,  she  stands  before  us,  or 
lies  down  in  death,  a  figure  spotless  in  body,  in  features,  and  in 
vesture.  There  is  a  beautiful  type  of  Jewish  face,  frequently 
employed  by  artists  to  externalize  the  virgin  soul, — a  pale, 


3  F.  Augar,  Die  Frau  im  romischen  Christenprocess,  in  Gebhardt 
and  Harnack,  Altchristliche  Literatur,  xxviii,  N.  F.  13.  More  recently, 
Bloch  has  fully  studied  this  subject  (Die  Prostitution,  Bd.  i,  pp.  634ff.). 


THE   VIRGIN   MARTYRS.  349 

calm  face  surrounded  with  jet-black  hair,  a  lily  framed  in 
ebony. 

But  now,  in  this  chapter  on  the  Virgin  Martyrs,  Aft  steps 
back  and  History,  coming  again  forward,  lays  her  hand  on 
the  picture  of  the  lily's  last  days  before  her  martyrdom.  His- 
tory touches,  too,  the  ecclesiastical  calendars ;  with  the  result 
that  in  perhaps  all  the  cases  of  feminine]  names  dating  from 
the  three  first  centuries  of  our  era,  and  having  the  letters  V.  M. 
appended  to  them,  we  are  under  compulsion  to  strike  out  the  V. 
To  strike  it  out,  that  is  to  say,  unless  V.  means  something  more 
than  has  been  allowed  for  in  the  popular  notion  of  it;  unless 
a  spiritual  interpretation  of  V.  can  recover  for  us  that  which 
the  literal  interpretation  has  failed  to  preserve. 

For  let  us  face  the  facts  at  once.  In  pagan  Rome  virginity 
was  held  in  such  high  social  esteem,  that  no  woman,  being  a 
virgin,  could  be  led  to  execution.  Ploss-Bartels  state  that  there 
is  the  record  of  an  edict  issued  under  Tiberius,  rendering  such 
executions  impossible  ;^  and  there'  are  references  in  Tacitus, 
Dio  Cassius,  and  Suetonius  to  a  universal  prejudice  in  the 
pagan  society,  against  putting  women  to  death  in  a  state  of 
virginity.^  These  references  receive  support  from  the  records 
and  legends  of  the  Christian  persecutions. 

We  have,  then,  here  a  particularly  painful  and  terrible 
illustration  of  how  a  social  sentiment  which,  in  the  ordinary 
course,  made  for  general  purity  and  nobility  of  life  and  man- 
ners, manifested  itself  as  a  superstition  in  one  special  direc- 
tion— the   direction   of   criminal   law ;   and   in  the   guise   of   a 


4  Ploss-Bartels,  Das  Weib  8,  Bd.  i,  p.  533. 

5  Annals,  v,  9;  Dio  Cassius,  viii,  11,  5;  Sueton.,  Ti.  61,  5.  (Augar, 
op.  cit.,  p.  77).  Suetonius  says:  "Immaturse  puellae,  quia  more  tradito 
nefas  esset  virgines  strangulari,  vitiatse  prius  a  carnifice,  dein  strangu- 
latae."  I  see  no  reason,  except  literary  delicacy,  for  Principal  Work- 
man's rejection  of  the  plain  inference  that  the  violation  of  virgins 
before  execution  was  a  requirement  of  at  least  the  "unwritten  law" 
in  ancient  Rome,  or  for  his  suggestion  that  the  practice  in  question 
originated  with  the  lust  and  violence  of  mobs  (Workman,  Persecution 
in  the  Early  Church,  pp.  301fF.). 


350  THE    VIRGIN    MARTYRS. 

superstition  wrought  such  havoc  and  cruelty  as  can  be  alluded 
to  nowadays  only  with  guarded  words.  The  first  case  in  point 
comes 'from  a  pagan  household:  Tacitus  has  recorded  it;  but 
it  is  too  sad  and  horrible  to  be  reproduced  here.  Besides,  the 
main  business  of  this  chapter  is  with  the  saints'  days  marked 
by  V.  M. 

The  allusions  collected  by  Augar  from  patristic  writings 
and  hagiography  form  a  somewhat  obscure  and  nebulous  body 
of  documentary  matter.  There  is  an  element  of  pious  fiction 
in  them.  Now  and  again  the  virgins  are  represented  as  being 
enabled  to  deliver  their  virginity  fromi  its  impending  danger, 
either  by  their  own  diplomacy,  or  by  the  chivalry  of  a  man 
who  cheats  the  guards  and  lets  thej  imprisoned  virgin  escape 
by  the  way  he  has  entered ;  or  by  supernatural  interference  in 
some  form.  There  are  details  of  importance  which  are  glossed 
over,  and  points  left  doubtful ;  as,  whether  the  measures  to  be 
presently  described  as  taken  against  the  Christian  women 
affected  in  practice  all  alike,  or  only  the  virgins ;  whether 
those  measures  were  regarded,  by  the  magistrates  who  or- 
dained them,  as  an  aggravation  or  as  a  postponement  and  miti- 
gation of  the  death  penalty  itself ;  with  what  degree  of  prompti- 
tude or  of  reluctance,  the  average  praetor,  when  he  saw  the  lily 
face  framed  in  ebony  confronting  him,  would  be  likely  to  en- 
force the  law.  But  for  the  law  itself,  for  its  place  and  opera- 
tion in  the  Imperial  system,  no  doubts  in  that  direction  need  be 
entertained.  It  was  forbidden  to  scandalize  the  public  by 
executing  a  virgin;  and  the  magistrates,  in  dealing  with 
Christian  women,  might,  should,  and  probably  would,  see  to  it 
that  such  a  scandal  did  not  occur. 

How  then  shall  it  be  with  the  well-known  picture,  when 
History  has  shouldered  Art  aside;  and  with  her  own  rough 
brush  and  indelicate  hand  has  adjusted,  as  she  thinks  fit,  the 
foreground  and  the  background  of  the  Lily's  environment  on 
the  canvas ;  nay,  has  applied  strange  colors  to  the  Lily  framed 
in  Ebony  herself? 

The  external  spotlessness  of  the  central  figure  will  be  ap- 


THE   VIRGIN    MARTYRS.  351 

propriate  enough  in  a  picture  representing  the  trial :  there 
is  one  such  picture  very  well  known  as  an  engraving  in 
English  households.  But  a  month  or  two  months  after  the 
trial,  when  the  Lily — St.  Agatha  or  St.  Irene,  or  whomsoever 
we  choose  as  the  representative  of  the  class  of  saints  marked 
V.  M. — had  refused  to  throw  incense  on  Csesar's  altar,  and 
was  to  suffer  the  last  penalty  of  the  law,  what  was  she  like, 
what  were  her  inwardness  and  her  outwardness,  tlienf 

The  Christian  woman,  when  she  felt  the  propraetor's  eye 
upon  her,  was  no  doubt  partly  aware  of  the  extent  of  her  dan- 
ger; and  there  was  superadded  to  her  bodily  fear  a  spiritual 
perplexity  of  the  profoundest  and  most  painful  kind.  For 
that  which  was  immediately  impending,  in  the  shape  of  pain 
and  death,  might  indeed  be  borne ;  the  joys  of  heaven  were  a 
more  than  sufificient  recompense  for  that.  But  how,  in  these 
circumstances,  to  solve  the  religious  problem  of  gaining  en- 
trance to  heaven  ? 

If  in  the  case  of  the  woman  accused  of  Christianity  (for 
that  came  to  be  by  itself  a  sufficient  ground  of  accusation)  V. 
and  M.,  virginity  and  martyrdom,  were  both  necessary  condi- 
tions of  winning  heaven,  how  was  heaven  ever  to  be  won  at  all  ? 
For  V.  and  M.  were  mutually  exclusive.  If  one  was  to  remain 
v.,  one  must  give  up  the  idea  of  becoming  M. ;  if  one  per- 
sisted in  becoming  M.,  one  would  find  it  impossible  to  remain 
V.  That  is,  if  V.  means  just  what  people  in  general  think  it 
means;  just  that,  and  nothing  more.  The  Lily  framed  in 
Ebony  cannot  solve  it.  She  can  only  trust  in  the  Love  and 
Wisdom  of  God,  and  in  the  promise  of  God  through  Christ. 
She  is  V.  now ;  and  she  must  not  throw  the  incense  on  Caesar's 
altar. 

Those  two  points  are  clear  in  her  mind,  as  the  moment 
of  decision  comes  to  her.  She  decides  from  feeling  rather 
than  from  calculation,  being  unable  to  reckon  up  or  to  antici- 
pate by  imagination  the  fearful  possibilities  of  the  immediate 
future.  Her  spiritual  instinct  is  to  refuse,  when  the  Imperial 
test  is  offered  her ;  and  she  does  refuse. 


352  THE   TRIAL. 

Material  force  is  all  on  the  side  of  the  pagan  magistrate 
in  this  matter.  The  woman,  if  she  has  been  heretofore  a 
Roman  citizen,  sinks,  by  the  fact  of  her  refusal,  to  the  position 
of  a  slave ;  and  the  pagan  Roman  conscience  has  been  slow  in 
perceiving  that  the  womanhood  of  a  slave  need  be  accorded 
any  consideration  at  all.  It  was  not  apparently  till  the  reign 
of  Severus  that  the  owners  of  female  slaves  were  forbidden  to 
sentence  them,  at  their  private  and  arbitrary  will,  to  the  fate 
now  hanging  over  the  Lily  framed  in  Ebony.  Besides,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  measures  which  it  is  proposed  to  take  against 
the  Lily  are  not  merely  tolerated  or  connived  at  by  the  im- 
perial law.  They  are  enjoined.  They  are  a  logical  develop- 
ment of  the  then  state  of  the  law. 

Magistrates,  even  pagan  magistrates,  are  not  merely 
juridical  machines.  They  are  men:  they  have  their  personal 
feelings  and  private  ideas.  History  is  not  wholly  devoid  of 
instances  of  magistrates  combating,  as  men,  the  criminal 
sentences  which  they  themselves  have  passed  in  their  official 
capacity.  And  Mommsen  may  be  right  when  he  urges  that 
this  mitigating  element  in  the  Lily's  special  danger  must  be 
taken  account  of  in  a  general  estimate  of  the  extent  and 
amount  of  dishonor  inflicted  on  Christian  women  throughout 
the  empire.  But  it  is  my  business  here  to  follow  the  main  line 
of  the  facts. 

If,  under  the  sway  of  Imperial  Rome,  V.  is  a  bar  to  the 
execution  of  a  woman,  V.  must  be  broken  through.  And  that 
would  seem  to  present  no  difficulty.  V.  will  surely  yield  to 
guile;  or  if  not  to  guile,  then  to  force.  And  there  is  no  lack 
of  either,  in  Imperial  Rome. 

Round  about  the  Coliseum  in  Rome,  or  the  smaller  arenas 
which  represent  it  in  the  provincial  cities,  are  many  houses, 
which  the  Lily  has  never  entered;  probably  has  never  been 
permitted  to  approach.  But  now,  after  the  crisis  of  her 
religious  decision,  without  preparation  or  delay,  she  shall  be 
forced  to  see,  nay  rather  to  feel,  to  know  with  the  most  full 
and  intimate  measure  of  knowledge,  their  interior  and  the  man- 


THE   SENTENCE.  353 

ner  of  their  living.  She  is  sentenced  to  provisional  internment 
in  one  of  the  lupanaria.^ 

Once  that  sentence  was  put  into  execution,  and  apart  from 
the  apocryphal  features  of  the  group  of  references  collected 
by  Augar,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  a  woman  could  ever  have  suc- 
ceeded in  preserving  her  virginity, — virginity  being  regarded 
as  a  thing  or  state  of  the  body.  For  on  the  one  hand,  if  she 
persisted  in  her  refusal  to  throw  incense  on  Cjesar's  altar,  her 
virginity  must  be  destroyed  as  the  necessary  prelude  to  her 
execution;  and  on  the  other  hand,  if  she  yielded  in  the  matter 
of  religion,  the  immense  pressure  brought  to  bear  upon  her 
moral  sense,  by  daily  and  nightly  life  in  the  lupanar,  may 
fairly  be  assumed  to  be  of  sufficient  weight  to  crush  the  living 
resistance  of  her  purity. 

At  this  point,  as  the  sentence  of  internment  in  the  lupanar 
is  carried  out,  two  scenes  vividly  present  themselves  to  the 
historic  imagination.  The  two  central  figures  in  those  scenes 
are  similarly  circumstanced.  They  are  the  figures  of  women. 
They  have  stood  at  the  same  doorway,  a  doorway  in  a  gallery, 
with  many  like  it  on  either  hand;  a  doorway  with  a  name 
above  it  and  a  curtain  hanging  before  it.  They  have  stood 
there  in  the  same  state, — visibly  they  were  women.  A  lamp 
smokes  in  the  murky  room  behind  the  curtain.  There  is  a 
glint  of  gold  on  the  otherwise  bare  breasts  of  both  of  them ; 
but  while  the  hands  of  the  one  are  free,  those  of  the  other,  as 
I  well  believe,  are  bound.  Juvenal  has  depicted  the  one  scene, 
and  the  one  figure :  the  other  is  given  in  the  Acta  of  the 
martyrdom  of  St.  Irene. 


c  It  is  worth  observing  that  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  accepted  the 
cotidemnatio  ad  lupanar  under  the  pagan  Empire  as  a  historical  fact. 
The  reference  (which  I  owe  to  my  brother,  Fr.  R.  H.  Northcote)  is 
in  the  commentary  on  the  Magister  Scntcntianim,  4  dist.,  xxxiii,  q.  1, 
art.  3,  9a  1,  ad  2m :  "secundum  jus  positivum  fornicatio  simplex  non 
prohibetur,  immo-  potius  in  pncnam  secundum  antiquas  leges  mulieres 
lupanaribus  tradend?e  condemnabantur."  Cp.  J.  Miiller,  Keuschheit- 
sideen,  2,  p.  57. 

23 


354  THE    LUPANAR. 

Enough  of  that :  let  it  be  granted,  on  the  authority  of 
the  Acta,  that  St.  Irene,  though  forcibly  exposed  in  precisely 
the  same  manner  as  Messalina  willingly  exposed  herself,  re- 
mained for  three  days  V,  The  force  brought  to  bear  on  her 
was  limited.  But  still,  she  will  not  burn  incense  on  Csesar's 
altar.    She  will  not  give  up  the  thought  of  being  M. 

Things  were  thoroughly  understood  in  the  lupanar. 
There  would  be  many  ways  of  achieving  the  destruction  of 
virginity  by  the  method  of  guile.  The  keeper  of  the  gallery, 
and  the  experienced  prostitutes  who  aided  him  in  its  manage- 
ment, had  a  wide  practical  knowledge  of  sexual  passion  and  its 
complex  psychology.  They  were  personally  acquainted  with 
the  morbid  phenomena  which  philosophers  and  historians  of 
morals  classify  and  analyze  from  a  detached  standpoint.  They 
knew  well  how  to  stimulate  and  intensify  masculine  passion; 
how  to  meet  the  special  demands  of  rough  soldiers,  gladiators, 
and  slaves,  of  young  gallants  and  dandies  flushed  with  wine 
and  excited,  in  the  way  Ovid  describes,  with  the  ubiquitous 
presence  of  pretty  women;  even  the  strange  cravings  of  ex- 
hausted profligates  and  perverts, — they  were  ready  for  them 
all.  And  they  knew  the  most  effective  methods  of  corrupting 
women;  how  to  inflame  them  with  wine,  perfumes,  amorous 
music,  colors,  and  gaiety;  how  to  transform,  as  by  a  magic 
touch,  the  cloak  of  feminine  modesty  into  a  mere  diaphanous 
gauze. 

Force  would  be  employed  against  the  Lily  framed  in 
Ebony,  during  the  first  weeks  of  her  imprisonment  in  the 
lupanar;  not  the  savage  force  which,  after  a  desperate  physi- 
cal struggle,  rends  away  a  woman's  virginity;  but  the  subtle 
pressure  which  drives  her  into  situations  where  she  can  be 
prevailed  on  to  part  with  it. 

All  the  weight  of  the  vicious  moral  atmosphere  would 
descend  upon  her  soul,  stifling  its  pure  intention;  a  ceaseless 
flow  of  erotic  suggestions  coming  from  her  environment  would 
envelop  with  their  disintegrating  action  the  crystal  idea  which 
upbringing,  tradition,  and  religion  had  firmly  imbedded  in  her 


THE   OUTRAGE.  355 

mind.  But,  as  modern  psychologists  have  noted,  marvellous  is 
the  persistence  of  well-formed  moral  convictions  in  a  human 
soul.  They  have  shown  that  such  convictions  repel  adverse 
suggestions,  even  when  those  suggestions  have  enlisted  the 
powerful  aid  of  hypnotic  control,  or  some  kindred  influence 
confusing  the  judgment  and  enfeebling  the  volition.'^  Thus 
it  is  credible  that  none  even  of  the  mysterious  mighty  things 
which,  by  day  and  by  night,  approach  the  condemned  woman's 
sexual  consciousness, — the  wines  concealing  aphrodisiac  drugs, 
the  sensuous  pictures,  the  baths,  the  perfumed  waters  and 
ointments,  the  deceit  of  persuasive  gentleness,  the  stimulation 
of  an  aggressive  bearing  stopping  short  of  roiighness,  the 
whole  display  of  the  resourcefulness  of  erotic  passion,  of  the 
armory  of  the  Ars  Amatoria, — of  the  wiles  of  Comus, — suc- 
ceed in  corrupting  her  original  resolve.  Come  what  may,  she 
will  not  yield  her  virginity;  and  come  what  may,  she  will  not 
conform  with  the  religious  requirements  of  the  State.  There- 
fore, finally,  but  one  measure  remains,  one  part  of  the  imperial 
sentence,  gathering  up  into  a  single  ghastly  episode  all  the 
brutality  of  the  provocatio  meritorii,  the  prolonged  insult  of 
the  lupanar. 

Alas  for  thee  this  night,  O  Lily  framed  in  Ebony ;  for  if 
virginity  be  only  of  the  body,  then  there  is  no  draggled  Lycisca 
in  all  Thessalonica,  whose  virginity  is  more  effectually  defiled 
and  destroyed,  more  contemned  and  abused,  more  bruised  and 
bleeding,  than  thine  will  be,  when  the  sun  rises  on  the  Kalends 
of  April! 


Thus,  in  view  of  historical  fact,  the  figure  of  a  Christian 
woman  of  the  three  first  centuries,  whose  name  is  included  in 
the  list  of  those  distinguished  as  V.  M.,  must  have  been  ex- 
traordinarily unlike  those  of  the  externally  spotless  and  serene 
maidens  who  shine  upon  us,  like  the  chaste  moon,  from  the 


"  J.  Milne  Bramwell,  Hypnotism,  ed.  2,  pp.  425ff.     Cp.  Forel,  Die 
sexuelle  Frage,  p.  498. 


356  THE   EXECUTION. 

Stained  windows.  She  who,  at  length,  on  the  day  of  her  exe- 
cution, passes — or  more  probably  has  to  be  borne — along  the 
street  to  the  place  where  she  is  to  die,  seems  to  the  vast  major- 
ity of  the  spectators  like  any  other  despised  slave-prostitute, 
with  nothing  more  to  remark  about  her  than  that  she  is  a 
treasonable  fanatic  as  well.  Her  virginity  has  been  simply 
smashed  to  pieces :  her  soiled  garments,  reeking  of  the  hot 
lupanar,  symbolize  the  thorough  defilement  of  her  honor. 
Only  a  few,  a  very  few  of  those  that  behold  her  sorrow,  per- 
ceive that  she  is  in  truth  a  very  king's  daughter,  all  glorious 
within,  her  spiritual  clothing  made  of  wrought  gold,  her  soul's 
garments  smelling  of  myrrh,  aloes,  and  cassia. 

The  task  incumbent  on  philosophic  historians  is  that  of 
evaluating  the  advance  made  by  humanity  or  any  part  of  it,  in 
the  given  period  and  along  the  particular  line  of  progress  they 
take  as  the  subject  of  their  study.  At  the  present  day  many 
able  minds  are  investigating  the  history  of  sexual  morals ;  and 
indications  of  change  and  progress,  both  in  thought  and  prac- 
tice, are  increasingly  discernible  in  that  department,  as  in 
every  other  department,  of  human  history.  As  this  planet,  to 
our  dim  vision  immobile,  is  in  truth  ceaselessly  moving  with 
immense  velocity  toward  Vega ;  so  the  concept  of  the  Right 
and  Good  in  the  sex:  life  speeds  through  generations  of  men 
and  epochs  of  history,  toward  some  ethical  ideal,  some  ob- 
jective perfect  thought,  which  metaphysicians  even  now  are 
forced  to  posit  as  the  ultimate  spiritual  Purity. 

And  first,  it  is  in  place  here  to  observe  that  in  the  course 
of  ages,  the  social  estimate  of  virginity  has  undergone  change, 
and  received  special  developments.  What  an  advance  in  social 
opinion  and  its  expression,  law,  is  to  be  inferred  from  the 
contrast  between  the  respective  points  of  view  of  a  modern 
civilized  state  and  that  of  Imperial  Rome,  on  such  a  subject 
as  the  one  with  which  this  chapter  has  dealt!  A  proceeding 
which  modern  sentiment  regards  without  any  qualification  as 
sexual  outrage,  as  something  categorically  and  universally 
wrong,  was  at  one  time  part  of  a  great  legal  system;  justi- 


VIRGINITY    IN    HISTORY.  357 

fied  on  an  ignorant,  superstitious  theory  of  the  nature  of 
hoHness.  Modern  criminal  law  might  have  to  pronounce  sen- 
tence of  death  on  a  woman  criminal  in  a  state  of  virginity ; 
and  modern  ethical  feeling,  in  such  a  case,  would  certainly  con- 
sider it  more  wrong  to  deprive  the  condemned  woman  of  her 
virginity,  as  a  prelude  to  her  execution,  than  to  carry  out  the 
sentence  upon  her  as  she  was.  Roman  ethical  feeling  reversed 
this  view.  The  Roman  community  held  that  the  wrong  of 
executing  a  virgin — however,  much  of  a  social  rebel  or  criminal 
she  might  be — was  so  great  as  to  justify  the  steps  taken  to 
avoid  it.  The  community  outraged  holiness  in  one  way  to 
save  itself  (as  it  believed)  from  outraging  it  in  another  and  a 
worse  one.  Thus  a  superstitious  social  regard  of  virginity 
caused  a  social  violation  of  virginity.  The  contrast  between 
the  ancient  and/  the  modern  points  of  view  is  the  result  of 
ethical  evolution.  It  has  been  brought  about  by  increasing 
clearness  of  insight  into  the  nature  of  the  conditions,  and  the 
spiritual  value  of  the  phenomena,  of  the  sex  Hfe  in  humanity. 
A  false  estimate  of  the  value  of  virginity  caused  violence  in  its 
worst  form  to  be  taken  up  into  a  system  of  law.  Modern  law 
and  modern  feeling  have  left  that  procedure,  logical  as  it 
seemed  at  the  time,  far  behind  them,  in  the  dark  backwater  of 
history ;  and  cannot  now  even  glance  back  at  it  without  abhor- 
rence. A  cogent  proof,  surely,  of  the  evolution  of  sexual 
morals. 

Not  merely  secular  and  pagan  history,  however,  furnishes 
an  illustration  of  the  ultimate  harm  done  to  purity  by  a  dis- 
position to  make  a  social  fetish  of  physical  virginity,  to  con- 
sider (in  other  words)  that  purity  in  women  depends  abso- 
lutely for  its  existence  on  that  physical  state;  but  even  Chris- 
tian opinion  has  often  taken  a  purblind  view  as  to  the  nature 
of  purity.  It  has  regarded  the  physical  factor  in  that  con- 
cept, as  bulking  more  largely  than  the  spiritual  factor.  In 
point  of  fact,  here  as  everywhere,  the  spiritual  aspect  of  the 
matter  is  of  far  more  profound  and  permanent  importance 
than  the  physical.    Physical  virginity  may  come  to  its  end  from 


358  MORAL   ESTIMATE   OF   VIRGINITY. 

several  causes ;  pressure  of  various  kinds  may  be  exerted  upon 
the  inherent  resistance  of  that  state,  and  may  break  it  down. 

Yet,  really,  there  is  something  in  sexual  purity  that  is 
supraphysical ;  something  that  may  remain  inviolate  and  un- 
broken, when  all  its  physical  defenses  have  been  shattered 
to  fragments.  A  married  woman  may  still  be  sexually  pure, 
as  we  moderns  clearly  and'  generally  perceive;  though  thous- 
ands of  religious  people  have  thought  and  said  ere  now,  that 
she  is  not  and  cannot  be.  A  seduced  woman  may  still  be  sex- 
ually pure;  for  the  judgment  to  which  she  is  primarily  subject 
is  the  collective  judgment  of  her  own  community,  society,  or 
nation;  and  that  judgment  is  formed  from  custom  and  law, 
which  are  the  evolving,  mutable,  and  it  may  be  fallacious  ex- 
pression of  an  imperfectly  discerned  spiritual  law;  and  which 
may  be  reversed  by  the  judgment  even  of  the  neighboring 
community  or  of  the  next  generation.  At  any  rate,  be  the 
external  circumstances  of  her  fall  or  betrayal  what  they  may, 
the  spirit  of  purity  may  still  abide  and  energize  in  her.  The 
current  collective  judgments  upon  her  do  not  penetrate  to  the 
center  of  her  being. 

Finally,  a  violated  woman  may  still  be  sexually  pure ;  that 
possibility  has  a  spiritual  basis,  and  has  been  realized  to  the 
full  in  the  heroic  cases  referred  to  in  this  chapter. 

But  more  than  this.  To  anyone  who  is  acquainted  with 
that  body  of  literature  in  which  the  sex  life  is  widely  and  pro- 
foundly studied,  it  will  not  seem  arbitrary  or  fanciful  if  the 
above  reasoning  is  carried  a  step  farther,  and  a  parallel  is 
drawn  between  internal  and  external  violence,  in  regard  of  the 
sexual  nature.  For  the  moral  records,  e.g.,  of  monasteries 
and  nunneries,  wherever  a  genuine  effort  is  made  to  give  effect 
to  the  ascetic  theory,  afford  illustrations,  scarcely  less  heroic 
than  the  tribulation  of'  the  virgin  martyrs  themselves,  of  the 
volitional  struggle  to  preserve  purity,  under  an  immense  and 
constant  pressure  of  internal  temptation.  Wherever  such  in- 
ternal pressure  upon  the  virgin  will  is  felt — and  the  monastic 
system  by  no  means  monopolizes  the  whole  history  of  it — the 


THE    SPIRIT    OF   VIRGINITY.  359 

spiritual  result  is  closely  analogous  to  that  of  the  tragedy  of 
the  virgin  martyrs.  The  volition  of  holiness,  the  spirit  of 
purity,  may  prove  indestructible,  in  these  cases  as  in  those 
others.  A  measure  of  external  or  physical  failure,  which  it 
would  not  be  in  place  to  describe  more  fully,  may  quite  con- 
ceivably eventuate  during  the  struggle;  but  the  inner  line  of 
moral  defense  may  remain  unbroken ;  and  that  resisting  soul,  in 
spite  of  its  apparent  loss,  will  have  won  a  greater  victory  for 
holiness  than  persons  who,  from  the  tranquillity  of  their  en- 
vironment and  the  equableness  of  their  physical  constitution, 
have  never  experienced  such  assaults  of  passion  at  all. 

The  proposition  proved  in  the  foregoing  discussion  is  that 
the  loss  of  physical  virginity  and  the  loss  of  spiritual  vir- 
ginity are  not  commensurate. 

We  have  now  to  consider  a  corollary  to  this  proposition. 
The  men  of  many  societies  demand  virginity  from  the  unmar- 
ried women  under  penalty,  sometimes  personal  penalty  of  a 
very  severe  kind,  sometimes  as  among  ourselves  penalty  of  a 
subtler  social  action.  Some  societies  honor  virginity,  but  do 
not  exact  it  under  penalty.  Some,  comparatively  a  few,  dep- 
recate it ;  an  attitude  which  does  not  however  imply  that  the 
society  in  question  has  no  canons  of  sexual  morality,  but  is 
grounded  on  the  idea,  an  idea  carried  into  practice  by  various 
methods  according  to  the  moral  development  of  the  society 
holding  it,  of  the  necessity  of  education  in  sexual  and  erotic 
matters. 

In  civilized  communities  these  primitive  views  of  virginity 
coexist  and  modify  each  other.  Yet  it  cannot  be  said  that  a 
balanced  and  adequate  ethical  estimate  of  virginity  has  as  yet 
been  formed  in  the  masculine  consciousness  of  any  community. 

The  fact  is  that  even  so  educated  and  enlightened  a  society 
as  that  of  Britain  has  as  yet  by  no  means  outgrown  primitive- 
ness  and  superstition  in  its  valuation  of  virginity.  This  con- 
clusion may  be  fairly  drawn  from  some  of  the  evidence  given 
before  the  Royal  Commission  on  Divorce  (1910)  and  the 
literature  arising  out  of  it,  particularly  certain  writings  of  Mr. 


360  A   FALSE   ESTIMATE. 

Hall  Caine.  That  author  insists  on  the  depreciation  of  a 
woman's  value  in  the  eyes  of  the  male  community,  consequent 
on  the  loss  of  her  physical  virginity.  That  is  evidently  his 
point  of  view.  "The  poets,  novelists,  and  dramatists  of  all 
ages  and  all  countries,"  he  says  in  The  Daily  Telegraph,  "have 
centered  their  romantic  interest  for  the  most  part  in  the  young 
girl  who  has  never  known  a  man." 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  essentially  superstitious  this  view, 
uncritically  entertained,  i.e.,  removed  from  its  due  relation  to 
the  spiritual  estimate  of  purity,  becomes ;  or,  I  should  rather 
say,  is  and  remains ;  for  it  has  indeed,  as  Mr.  Hall  Caine  im- 
plies, dominated  the  sex  ethic  of  humanity  for  long  and  dark 
millenniums,  and  has  been  prolific  in  the  phenomena  of  in- 
justice and  cruelty  which  superstition  never  fails  to  produce. 
I  do  not  say  that  the  distinguished  author  himself  consciously 
holds  it  thus ;  yet  assuredly  the  superstitious  element  is  pres- 
ent in  his  thought,  and  confuses  his  treatment  of  the  ethical 
question  of  virginity.  In  his  discussion  he  assumes  that  the 
loss  of  physical  virginity  uniformly  involves  that  of  spiritual 
virginity.  His  feeling  of  the  delicacies  and  complexities  of 
the  question  is  rendered  abortive  by  this  assumption,  which 
has  been  shown  in  the  present  study  to  be  wrong. 

The  truth  is  that  conventional  and  economic  reasons  are 
powerful,  perhaps  one  must  say  determining  factors,  in  the 
contemporary  masculine  estimate  of  virginity.  Hall  Caine 
alludes  to  the  fact  that  the  world  entertains  contempt  for  the 
"complacent"  husband  who  overlooks  his  wife's  transgression, 
and  a  priori  for  a  man  who  marries  a  woman  who  has  lost 
her  virginity ;  it  being  assumed  in  this  latter  case  that  she  be- 
longs of  necessity  to  a  moral  underworld  of  society.  Here,  in 
this  uncriticised  and  untested  assumption,  is  a  conventional 
reason  for  valuing  virginity.  The  estimate  is  a  conventional 
point  of  honor  with  men,  conserved  mainly  by  the  fear  of 
contempt  and  ridicule. 

Further,  there  exists,  as  is  pointed  out  by  Havelock 
Ellis,  a  notion  that  the  virgin  bride  brings  her  husband  at 


TOWARD   A    DEEPER   ESTIMATE.  361 

marriage  an  important  capital  which  is  consumed  on  entering 
into  full  conjugal  relations,  and  can  never  be  recovered  there- 
after.^   The  underlying  idea  here  is  economic. 

To  cease  holding  an  idea  superstitiously,  implies  holding  it 
rationally  and  critically.  Such  reasons  as  the  conventional  and 
economiq  ones  referred  to  above  must  indeed  enter  into  and 
influence,  but  should  not  by  themselves  determine,  the  mas- 
culine estimate  of  virginity.  They  took  shape  in  the  barbarous 
stages  of  human  evolution,  and  still  retain  some  portion  of  the 
spirit  which  then  inspired  them.  What  Ploss  said  of  the  esti- 
mate of  virginity  in  primitive  races,  that  it  is  often  "nichts 
Sinniges,  vielmehr  nur  vSinnliches"^  that  causes  the  savage  to 
value  it,  holds  good,  though  less  obviously  and  in  a  happily 
decreasing  measure,  of  civilized  men. 

The  beneficial  change  in  the  moral  outlook  will  come  when 
men  agree,  not  to  discard  the  traditional  estimate  of  virginity, 
but  to  hold  it  critically,  to  reduce,  that  is,  the  prominence  of  its 
superstitious  features.  This  canon  of  development  applies  in 
fact  to  all  moral  ideas  cognate  with  the  estimate  of  virginity; 
to  all  aspects  of  the  male  community's  requirement  of  feminine 
chastity.  That  requirement  should  press  past  physical  facts 
into  the  region  of  spiritual  facts ;  and  in  that  region  it  should 
institute  its  inquiry.  If,  that  is,  a  man  is  confronted  in  a 
woman  by  the  deplorable  physical  fact  in  question ;  instead  of 
merely  asking  whether  that  fact  exists — a  limited  question 
whose  scope  is  determined,  as  we  have  seen,  by  superstitious 
motives — he  should  ask  what  further  fact,  what  fact  of  a 
spiritual  nature,  lies  behind  it.  I  have  read  of  positively  cruel 
divorces,  which  might  have  been  avoided  had  the  husband 
asked  himself  this  deeper  question ;  for  it  was  quite  clear  from 
the  evidence  that  the  woman,  though  humiliated,  had  not  lost 
the  permanent  spiritual  elements,  the  volitional  life,  of  her 
chastity. 

Thus  the  history  of  the  Virgin  Martyrs,  as  we  have  been 

8  H.  Ellis,  Sex  in  Relation  to  Society,  p.  468. 

9  PIoss-Bartels,  Das  Weib,  8,  Bd.  i,  S.  526. 


362  THE   VIRGIN'S    AUREOLE. 

able  to  ascertain  it,  is  of  paramount  value  for  the  understand- 
ing of  the  nature  and  reality  of  purity.  It  exhibits  purity  as  a 
spiritual  reality,  not  wholly  coincident  or  commensurate  with 
physical  processes ;  indeed  on  occasion  able  to  transcend,  to 
exist  independently  of,  the  events  of  the  physical  plane. 
There  is  here  a  word  of  promise,  a  message  of  immeasurable 
comfort  and  hope,  for  all,  whatever  their  temporal  circum- 
stances and  experiences,  who  wish  for  personal  purity. 

That  element  in  chastity  which  is  supremely  dear  to 
heaven,  the  inward  volitional  element,  is  indeed  guarded  by 
liveried  angels ;  even  when  all  the  outward  cognizable  elements 
have  perished. 

"While  the  Church,"  says  a  Roman  Catholic  divine,  "de- 
mands a  physical  integrity  in  those  who  would  wear  the  veil 
of  consecrated  virgins,  it  is  but  an  accidental  quality  and  may 
be  lost  without  detriment  to  that  higher  spiritual  integrity  in 
which  formally  the  virtue  of  virginity  resides.  The  latter 
integrity  is  necessary  and  is  alone  sufficient  to  win  the  aureole 
said  to  await  virgins  as  a  special  heavenly  reward. "^o 

And  thus,  though  history  disproves  the  popular  super- 
ficial estimate  of  the  virgin  martyrs,  and  drops  a  red  blot  upon 
the  V.  in  the  calendar;  yet  assuredly  a  thoughtful  reader  of 
history  will  conclude,  with  the  writer,  that  the  spiritual  instinct 
of  the  Church  has  been  right  in  refusing  to  erase  that  letter ; 
for  now  we  discern  it  once  more,  shining  forever  through  the 
dark-red  blot,  with  the  appearance  and  power  of  fire. 


10  J.  W.  Melody,  art.  Chastity,  in  the  CathoHc  Encyclopsedia. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 
The  Gospel  and  Sex  Relations. 

Asceticism  and  the  Gospel — Tolstoy's  Estimate — Christ's  Attitude 
and  Teaching — St.  Paul — The  Christian  Ideal  of  Marriage — The  Atone- 
ment and  Sexual  Sins. 

"Christianity,"  says  Bishop  Westcott,  "disregards  noth- 
ing in  the  rich  development  of  human  Hfe."i  Nevertheless  it 
goes  without  saying,  that  all  aspects  of  human  life  are  not 
considered  in  the  scheme  of  the  Gospel  as  of  equal  value. 
Briefly,  it  may  be  said  that,  as  the  Gospel  interprets  hfe,  all 
departments  of  it — the  life  of  sense,  of  intellect,  of  emotion,  of 
labor,  of  knowledge,  of  pleasure,  of  pain — must  be  lived  in  a 
subordinate  relation  to  the  life  of  the  spirit,  the  life  consisting 
in  the  communion  of  the  soul  with  God.  No  doctrine  of  gen- 
eral asceticism  can  be  built  upon  this  basis ;  but  particular 
aspects  of  the  temporal  side  of  life,  such  as  those  referred  to, 
may  have  to  be  partially  or  entirely  ignored  or  sacrificed  if  the 
preservation  and  expansion  of  the  higher  nature  so  require. 

Some  prominent  exponents  of  Christianity  have  lately  argued, 
basing  their  view  on  a  wholly  eschatological  interpretation  of  the 
Gospel's  ethic,2  that  Jesus  inculcated  despair  of  the  physical  order, 
and,  by  inference,  of  the  sex  process  which  forms  part  of  it.  This 
is  the  position'  of  Father  Tyrrell  in  his  posthumous  book,  Christianity 
at  the  Cross  Roads;  and  the  inference  has  been  drawn  by  at  least  two 
writers  in  Die  Neue  Generation,  Herman  Gschwind  in  1911,  and  Wal- 
ther  Vielhaber  in  1912,  who,  relying  on  the  supposed  acceptance  by 
Jesus  of  a  thoroughgoing  dualism,  urge,  in  effect,  like  His  adversaries 
of  old,  "He  hath  a  devil  and  is  mad;  why  hear  ye  Him?"  Such 
dualism,  however,  is  not  of  the  essence  of  Christ's  teaching.  The 
aim  of  His  teaching,  as  of  His  life  and  Passion,  was  rather  the 
unification   of   the  physical   and  the   supraphysical,   the   breaking   down 


1  Gospel  of  the  Resurrection,  ch.  i,  section  1. 

2  Cp.,  for  a  discussion,  Principal  Garvie's  article,  Christianity,  in 
Hastings,  Encyc.  Rfl.  Ethics,  vol.  iii. 

(363) 


364  THE    GOSPEL   AND   ASCETICISM. 

of  the  barriers  between  the  spiritual  and  the  material,  and  the  latter's 
renewal  and  elevation  to  higher  planes  of  being.3 

Harnack  adduces  three  considerations  showing  that  a 
rigorous  asceticism  does  not  necessarily  pertain  to  the  follow- 
ing of  the  Gospel ;  that  it^  is  not,  so  to  speak,  an  indispensable 
passport  to  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. ^  There  is,  first,  the  prac- 
tice of  the  Founder  of  Christianity  Himself,  as  it  may  be 
gathered  from  the  Gospel  history,  and  particularly  as  it  is 
summed  up  in  one  of  His  own  sayings.^  Harnack's  own  con- 
clusion is  as  follows :  "Toward  the  various  fields  in  which 
asceticism  had  been  traditionally  practised,  He  must  have 
taken  up  an  attitude  of  indifference." 

Secondly,  the  practice  of  the  majority  of  the  first  disciples, 
which  must  have  been  based  on  the  precept  and  example  of 
their  Master,  and  which  was  inspired  by  His  Spirit.  There 
is  little  or  nothing  to  suggest  that  the  Christian  community 
in  the  Apostolic  Age  consisted  generally  of  people  who  were 
ascetics  on  principle.^ 

Thirdly,  that  the  introduction  of  ascetic  practices  referable 
to  legal  maxims  would  be  out  of  harmony  with  the  leading 
thoughts  in  Christ's  ethical  teaching. 

Asceticism  indeed  finds  its  right  place  and  function  in  con- 
nection with  the  sense  of  sin,'''  of  which  feeling  it  is  one  of  the 
symptoms,  and  on  which  it  sometimes  reacts  for  intensification. 
But  though  a  very  familiar,  it  is  not  an  indispensable  associate 
even  of  that  awakened  sense  ;^  moral  conversion  may  be  com- 


3  See  Miss  H.  A.  Dallas's  articles,  The  Kingdom  of  God  and  The 
Coming  of  the  Son  of  Man,  in  The  Commonwealth  for  1912.  Cp.^  J. 
C.  Lambert,  art.  Body  (Christian),  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Ethics. 

4  What  is  Christianity?  p.  81ff. 

5  St.  Matthew  11:19;  St.  Luke  7:34. 

<>  Von  Dobschiitz  (Christian  Life  in  the  Primitive  Church),  though 
he  concludes  that  the  ascetic  spirit  is  not  innate  in  Christianity  (pp. 
376fif.),  explains  and  to  some  extent  justifies  its  influence  as  an  external 
force  upon  the  primitive  Church  (pp.  113,  114,  and  passim). 

"'  Zockler,  Askese  und  Monchthum,  p.  4. 

8  Ibid. 


TEACHING    OF   TOLSTOY.  365 

pleted  without  it;  and  wherever  it  becomes  Manichean  in 
spirit  or  a  ground  of  self-righteous  complacency,  it  consti- 
tutes a  deflection  from  the  progressive  Christian  ethic. 

Further,  the  Christian  conception  of  love  in  relation  to 
God,  to  humanity,  and  to  creation  necessarily  embodies  an 
ideal  self-denial,  and  everywhere  implies  a  conflict  with  selfish- 
ness. In  Harnack's  words:  "Whenever  some  desire  of  the 
senses  gains  the  upper  hand  of  you,  so  that  you  become  coarse 
and  vulgar,  or  in  your  selfishness  a  new  master  arises  in  you, 
jyou  must  destroy  it ;  not  because  God  has  any  pleasure  in 
mutilation ;  but  because  you  cannot  otherwise  preserve  your 
better  part." 

In  the  light  of  these  considerations  we  must  view  the  Gos- 
pel's attitude  to  the  sex  life. 

It  were  tedious  to  enumerate  the  obscure  sects  which  in 
early  Christian  history  endeavored  to  extract  from  the 
Christian  Gospel  a  condemnation  of  all  carnal  sex  relations. 
But  such  ideas  are  by  no  means  extinct  in  our  own  day,  and 
are  therefore  of  practical  interest  to  us.  Tolstoy  in  particular, 
whose  teaching  on  the  relations  of  the  sexes  has  been  sum- 
marized in  a  booklet  published  by  the  "Free  Age  Press,"  treats 
the  sex  life  as  inimical  to  the  ethical  ideal  established  in  the 
New  Testament.  He  repudiates  what  is  called  "Christian 
marriage"  as  a  means  of  rendering  sexual  intercourse  lawful 
and  hallowed.  Marriage  to  a  Christian,  to  any  right-minded 
man,  is  a  fall,  and  though  it  w^ere  indeed  better  that  a  man,  if  he 
needs  must  fall,  should  fall  with  one  woman,  i.e.,  in  matri- 
mony, yet  he  should  still  strive  to  remain  in  the  unhappy  con- 
dition of  one  who  condemneth  himself  in  that  thing  which  he 
alloweth,  and  should  say  to  himself:  "I  am  falling;  I  hate  to 
fall."  Complete  sexual  abstinence,  according  to  Tolstoy,  in- 
heres in  the  Christian  ideal  of  character.  Since  most  men  find 
this  ideal  impossible  of  attainment,  they  may  aim  at  a  less 
perfect  chastity;  but  even  in  adopting  this  lower  ideal,  they 
are,  as  aforesaid,  to  condemn  themselves,  and  merely  to  use  it 
as  a  stepping-stone  to  the  higher. 


366  CHRIST    AND    THE    SEX   LIFE. 

Tolstoy  gives  us  the  Christian  ideal,  including  absolute 
continence,  as  he  has  imagined  it ;  but  the  passages  he  ad- 
duces in  support  of  his  contentions,  having  been  written  with 
a  very  different  purpose,  will  not  endure  the  strain  he  places 
on  them.  They  are  to  be  found  on  page  18  of  the  booklet. 
Leaving  for  the  present  the  question  of  the  indissolubility  of 
marriage  upon  which  Tolstoy  touches,  and  which,  is  by  no 
means  as  free  from  obscurity  in  the  Gospels  as  he  would  have 
us  think,  the  present  writer  cannot  but  object  that  the  remark 
"for  man  in  general,  and  therefore  both  for  the  married  and 
unmarried  ones,  it  is  sinful  to  look  upon  woman  as  an  object 
of  pleasure"  is  quite  an  erroneous  interpretation  of  St.  Matt. 
5 :  28,  29.  This  passage  is  dealing  not  with  lawful,  i.e.,  con- 
jugal, but  with  unlawful  sexual  desire.  It  is  a  comment  on 
the  commandment,  "Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery,"  to 
the  effect  that  the  conscious  indulgence  of  all  wandering  de- 
sires, in  regard  to  women  other  than  the  one  toward  whom 
a  man  has  sexual  rights,  is  worthy  of  condemnation.^  Tol- 
stoy's exegesis  of  this  passage  is  on  every  ground  inadmis- 
sible; and  he  misses  the  point  of  St.  Matt.  19:10-12  quite 
as  fully.  That  passage,  to  which  we  shall  refer  again  pres- 
ently, teaches  no  doctrine  of  celibacy  as  a  counsel  of  perfec- 
tion. It  does  not  imply  that  in  the  general  rule  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven  can  only  be  entered,  or  can  best  be  entered,  by 
"becoming  a  eunuch."  According  as  we  interpret  "the  say- 
ing" (tov  Aoyov)  of  verse  11,  of  Christ's  own  utterance — an 
interpretation  which  the  present  writer  prefers^*^ — or  of  that 
of    the    disciples,    the    passage    under    consideration    will    be 


^  Cp.  Nosgen's  remarks  in  loc.  (Strack  u.  Zockler,  p.  54);  and 
J.  Weiss,  on  St.  Matthew  5 :  28,  in  Die  Schriften  des  N.  T.  f  lir  die 
Gegenwart  erklart ;  Bloch,  The  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time,  p.  117. 

10  The  majority  of  commentators  refer  tov  \6-yov  in  this  passage 
to  the  remark  of  the  disciples.  So  Edersheim,  Life  and  Times,  ii,  335n., 
who,  however,  admits  that  without  much  difificulty  t6u  \6yov  may  be 
applied  to  Christ's  own  saying.  Grammatically,  tovtov  t6v  \6yov  might 
refer  to  a  remark  which  immediately  precedes,  as  in  St.  Mark  9:  10; 


CHRIST   AND    THE    SEX    LIFE.  367 

either  (a)  a  recognition  on  the  Lord's  part  that  the  sexual 
nature  of  man  could  not  in  all  cases  support  the  strain  which 
the  doctrine  of  the  indissolubility  of  marriage,  in  its  ideal  per- 
fection, might  sometimes  place  upon  it;  or  (b)  a  statement  of 
similar  import  to  that  of  St.  Paul,ii  that  each  man  hath  his 
proper  gift  of  God — one  servant  of  God  may  be  called  and 
enabled  to  remain  celibate,  another  may  be  called  to  the  chaste 
enjoyment  of  sexual  pleasure  in  the  married  state. 

Christ,  it  is  true,  seems  toi  enunciate  a  doctrine  of  com- 
plete suppression  of  the  sexual  emotions  by  implying  that  it 
may  become  necessary  to  withdraw  from  a  wife's  society  with 
a  view  to  greater  efficiency  and  self-devotion  in  the  cause  of 
the  Gospel.12  But  there  is  no  general  discouragement  of  mar- 
riage here.  The  law  of  God's  service,  involving  in  particular 
cases  the  highest  forms  of  self-sacrifice,  is  emphatically  stated. 
Its  appHcation  is  infinitely  varied. 

Jesus  Christ  was  not  married;  but  there  is  no  sufficient 
reason  for  thinking  that  He  was  wholly  devoid  of  sexual 
emotion.    To  complete  His  circle  of  representative  human  ex- 


St.  Luke  1 :  29,  4 :  36,  etc.,  or  to  one  which  immediately  succeeds,  so 
St.  John  21:23;  Jd.  11:37  (lxx).  But  it  seems  more  natural  to  sup- 
pose Tov  \6yov  to  mean  the  authoritative  saying  of  Christ  (cf.  St.  John 
6:60,  15:3),  or  the  matter  of  primary  importance  under  consideration. 
(Cp.  Plato,  Legg.  626d.)  Cp.  Nosgen  in  loc.  (Strack  and  Zockler,  Kurzg. 
Kommentar),  who  considers  that  rbv  \6yoi>=haddabhar  and  is  to  be 
understood  of  "the  matter  under  discussion,"  i.e.,  men's  capacity  for 
remaining  celibate.  This  capacity,  however,  has  to  be  considered  not 
merely  in  relation  to  ecclesiastical  celibacy,  which  is  the  direction  in 
which  Nosgen  turns  his  elucidation  of  the  passage  (cp.  Chrysostom, 
Honi.  in  St.  Matthew  62)  ;  but  in  all  cases  where  circumstances,  on  a 
prima  facie  view,  seem  to  demand  such  a  self-abnegation,  including 
those  in  which  the  failure  of  previous  married  life  is  one  of  the  con- 
ditions. More  especially  may  it  be  read  in  this  way  if  with  Westcott- 
Hort  TovTov  be  omitted  on  the  authority  of  the  best  ancient  MSS. 
According  to  the  ordinary  view,  our  Lord  is  represented  as  misunder- 
standing or  evading  the  discussion  of  the  point  raised  by  the  disciples. 

Ill  Cor.  7:7. 

12  Luke  14:26,  18:29. 


368  CHRIST   TEMPTED. 

periences,  He  must  have  felt  the  action  of  such  emotion  on  the 
moral  sense.  Such  is  the  view  of  one  of  the  profoundest  of 
the  New  Testament  writers. i^ 

Moreover,  Christ  asserted  natural  human  rights.  It  is 
clear,  for  example,  that  He  asserted  the  natural  human  right 
of  self-defense.  He  commanded  His  disciples  to  arm  in  an 
hour  of  danger.  But  when  the  crisis  came,  the  uniqueness  of 
the  work  He  had  to  do  on  earth  demanded  that  He  should 
waive  the  right  He  had  Himself  asserted;  and  He  refused  to 
allow  His  disciples  to  use,  on  His  own  behalf,  the  very 
weapons  He  had  commanded  them  to  bring. i^^ 

Similarly,  nothing  in  His  words  or  practice  implies  a  re- 
fusal on  His  part  to  recognize  marriage  as  one  of  man's  rights. 


13  Heb.  2:  18;  4:  IS.  Cp.  Kiibel's  comment  in  loc.  (Strack  u.  Zock- 
ler)  :  "Die  Gleichartigkeit  Jesu  mit  den  Menschen  ist  eine  allseitige, 
also  auch  Schwache,  besonders  Versuchbarkeit  und  Leidensfahigkeit  in 
sich  schliessend.  Auch  an  die  Siindhaftigkeit  zu  denken  wird  durch 
den  Zusammenhang  zum  mindesten  nicht  gefordert  und  durch  4:15; 
7 :  26 ;  9 :  14  unbedingt  verwehrt."  It  should  be  remembered,  indeed, 
that  according  to  Catholic  theology  any  experience  of  sexual  emotion 
which  Christ  may  have  had  could  not  have  aroused  in  Him  even  the 
most  rudimentary  form  of  self-will.  Such  a  contingency  was  obviated 
by  His  possession  of  the  Divine  Nature,  and  by  the  constant  operation 
of  His  Divine  Will ;  which  was  the  cause  that  the  evil  and  corruption 
inherent  in  the  human  nature  which  He  had  graciously  assumed  re- 
mained potential  and  unrealized,  and  so  not  subject  to  judgment  in  the 
moral  sphere.  See  the  discussion  in  Liddon,  Bampton  Lectures,  17th 
ed.,  pp.  522ff.,  note  C,  On  the  Temptation  of  Christ;  and  for  a  judg- 
ment on  the  matter  which  eminently  commends  itself  to  the  present 
writer,  the  luminous  and  reverent  note  of  Bengel  on  Heb.  4:15.  "In 
intellectu,  multo  acrius  anima  Salvaioris  percepit  imagines  tentantes, 
quam  nos  infirmi:  in  voluntate,  tani  celeriter  incursum  earum  retudit, 
qttam  ignis  aquce  guttulam  sibi  objectam.  Expertus  est  igitur,  qua 
virtute  sit  opus  ad  tentationes  vincendas."  But  preachers  and  theolo- 
gians who  deny  in  toto  the  existence  of  the  sexual  instinct  in  Christ 
present  a  seriously  impoverished  conception  of  the  Incarnation.  J. 
Weiss  (Die  Schriften  des  Neuen  Testaments,  Bd.  i,  p.  354)  has  a  note- 
worthy comment  on  Matthew  19:  12.  He  thinks  that  the  self-abnegation 
of  Jesus  in  the  sphere  of  the  sex  life  must  have  involved  a  painful 
sacrifice. 

13a  Lk.  22 :  36,  49ff. ;  Matt.  26 :  52. 


CHRIST   TEMPTED.  369 

He  does,  indeed,  establish,  by  precept  and  by  example,  the 
doctrine  already  noticed — that  this  and  all  other  rights  ought  to 
be  waived  when  they  clearly  conflict  with  a  special  call  to 
higher  forms  of  self-sacrifice  ;i^''  such  a  call  as  existed  pre- 
eminently in  His  own  case.  It  was  because  His  own  peculiar 
position  and  work  in  the  world  did  not  permit  of  His  marry- 
ing; not  because  there  is  (as  Tolstoy  argues)  anything  in- 
herently sinful  in  sexual  emotion  or  in  the  physical  use  of 
marriage;  not  because  He  approved  such  contemporary  views 
as  those  of  the  Essenes,  who  repudiated  marriage,  that  He 
Himself  refrained  from  it.  A  teacher  who  deprecates  even 
lawful  sexual  pleasure,  and  almost  "forbids  to  marry,"  would 
appear  to  be  possessed  of  a  Christianity  strongly  tinged  with 
Manichseanism ;  to  be  the  advocate  of  a  false  asceticism,  not 
only  not  countenanced,  but  already  condemned  in  the  New 
Testament. 1^ 

But  while  our  Lord  did  not  give  His  sanction  to  mis- 
leading and  impracticable  ascetic  doctrines  in  regard  to  sex- 
ual functions.  He  established  and  redefined  the  true  and 
reasonable  ideals  of  chastity  which  were  part  of  the  heritage  of 
His  countrymen.  He  did  not  recognize  as  lawful  any  form  of 
sexual  pleasure  outside  the  estate  of  marriage;  and  life  in  that 
estate  itself  ought  to  correspond  in  sobriety  and  dignity  to  the 
sacredness  with  which  in  His  eyes,  as  in  those  of  the  pious 
Israelites  of  His  time,  it  was  invested. ^^ 

Moreover,  Christ  gave  a  social  status  to  celibacy.  In  one 
canonical  saying  (St.  Matt.  19:  12),  which  is  perhaps  supported 

by  a  non-canonical  saying  (6    Kara   rrpodtcriv    evvov;(tas    b  loXoyrfaas 

fxr]  yrjij.ai  ayaf^os   SiauevcTw,  Clem-Alex  Strom,  iii.  15:97),!'^  He 

13b  The  due  assertion  of  sex  rights  is  not  possible  apart  from  an 
awakened  faculty  of  value-judging,  and  is  to  be  held  in  connection 
with  the  call  to  self-sacrifice.  Yet  progressing  humanity  need  not 
despair  of  that  assertion  and  retreat  on  slave-morality,  as  Forster's 
argument   (op.  cit.,  p.  31f.)   suggests. 

14  1  Tim.  4:3;  Heb.  13:4. 

15  Edersheim,  L.  &  T.,  i,  p.  353. 

1*5  The  ethical  insight  of  Christianity  has  perceived  from  the  first 

24 


370  CELIBACY   IN    N.   T. 

invested  celibacy  with  a  peculiar,  though  not  necessarily  with  a 
pre-eminent  honor;  and  this  fact  is  the  more  impressive  when 
it  is  considered  that  His  recognition  of  celibacy  was  made  amid 
a  large  expression  of  adverse  sentiment  in  His  own  day.  The 
ancient  Semitic  world  disliked  and  despised  celibacy;  and,  ac- 
cording to  Dalman,!'^  the  tendency  of  Rabbinic  teaching  was 
similarly  unfavorable  to  that  state  of  life.^^ 

In  some  of  the  later  New  Testament  literature  there  is  perhaps  a 
tendency  to  exalt  the  idea  of  celibacy — the  result  of  the  struggle  of  the 
Church  with  pagan  impurity — a  tendency  which  assisted,  though  it  did 
not  originate,  the  emphasis  laid  upon  that  form  of  self-sacrifice  in 
medieval  times.  Not  only  did  individuals  practise  this  form  of  self- 
abnegation,  but  wishes  were  expressed,  and  perhaps  realized  in  certain 
localities,  to  make  it  an  essential  of  the  Christian  ethical  system.i9 
Many  have  seen  in  such  a  passage  as  Rev.  14 :  1-5,  the  inspired  sanction 
and  justification  of  this  ascetic  tendency. 

But  a  very  strong  case  can  be  made  out  against  the  view  that  this 
passage  deals  with  literal  celibacy.  For  where,  as  in  the  Apocalypse, 
the  literary  methods  are  mainly  those  of  imagery  and  symbol,  a  mystical 
meaning  will  be  naturally  looked  for;  and  with  this  interpretation  such 
luminous  expositors  as  Milligan,  and  such  learned  commentators  as 
Zockler,  whose  note  exhaustively  reviews  the  different  interpretations, 
profess  themselves  content. 

Indeed,  even  if  literal  celibacy  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  primarily 


that  eunuchism  in  this  connection  is  a  symbolical  illustration ;  and  in 
fact  Christian  ethics  disapproves  of  castration  (except  perhaps  in 
pathological  cases,  see  supra,  p.  308ff.)  as  a  means  of  fleeing  temptation. 
Yet  there  have  not  been  wanting  in  Christendom  sects  and  schools 
which  have  practised  and  advocated  castration;  and  at  the  height  of 
the  monastic  period  a  half-disguised  admiration  of  the  practice  was 
fairly  prevalent.     (Zockler,  Askese  und  Monchthum,  pp.  259f.) 

17  Words  of  Jesus,  E.  tr.,  p.  123. 

IS  Nevertheless,  the  conclusions  expressed  by  Taylor  (Sayings  of 
the  Jewish  Fathers,  ed.  2,  p.  137n.)  suggest  that  in  Rabbinic  thought 
there  is  observable  a  certain  preparation  for  the  social  recognition  of 
celibacy,  originating  in  the  suspicion  with  which  sexual  relations  in 
general  were  regarded.  Cp.  the  remarks  of  Meyrick,  quoted  in  How- 
ard, op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  328. 

19  Von  Dobschiitz,  Primitive  Life  in  the  Christian  Church  (from, 
the  German),  pp.  262,  3. 


GROWTH    OF    CHRISTIAN    ETHIC.  371 

in  the  seer's  mind;  and  if  again  it  is  right  to  see  in  the  obscure  pas- 
sages, I  Tim.  3:2;  Tit.  1 : 6,  a  discouragement  of  second  marriage  and 
a  step  in  the  direction  of  clerical  celibacyrO  in  both  instances  these 
ethical  developments  must  be  viewed  in  their  proper  perspective,  in 
relation  to  the  general  New  Testament  presentation  of  Christian  free- 
dom, and  reliance  upon  spiritual  guidance  in  individual  cases.  In  so 
far  as  these  passages  enforce  by  a  special  illustration  the  general  law 
of  self-sacrifice  inspired' by  love,  they  are  ethically  progressive;  but  if 
they  are  understood  as  reaffirming  the  inherent  sinfulness  of  sexual 
relations,  they  become  from  that  point  of  view  ethically  reactionary  and 
degenerate.  Assuredly,  a  glorification  of  celibacy  on  the  basis  of  the 
last-mentioned  sentiment  not  only  requires  to  be  largely  qualified  by 
the  spirit  of  a  great  body  of  contrasted  Biblical  teaching,  but  is  even 
in  imperfect  harmony  with  the  general  attitude  of  the  Apocalyptist 
himself  toward  sex  as  a  source  of  ethical  imagery.2i  The  line  of 
exegesis  followed  by  such  commentators  as  are  referred  to  above, 
seems  to  be  the  only  one  that  brings  out  the  permanent  ethical  element 
underlying  the  apparent  asceticism. 

We  find  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  which  give  us  at  least  a 
reasonably  close  picture  of  the  historic  Jesus,  and  report  of 
His  teaching  as  actually  delivered,  a  sufficient  condemnation 
of  sexual  sin  in  the  forms  generally  condemned  not  merely  by 
Christian,  but  by  all  educated  human  opinion ;  even  if  this 
condemnation  is  not  as  full  and  explicit  as  many  readers  would 
expect.  Moreover,  to  believers  in  Christ,  His  teaching, 
whether  on  sexual  ethics  or  on  any  other  subject,  cannot  be 
gathered  from  the  Gospels  alone;  for  critical  difficulties  not- 
withstanding, His  Spirit  inspires  the  rest  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  becomes  the  motive  power  of  His  early  disciples' 
uncompromising  hostility  to  sexual  irregularities  and  impuri- 
ties. It  is  to  be  reinembered  that  the  Jewish  society  in  which 
Christ  lived  had  ideas — as  yet  sufficiently  definite,  though  in 
process  of  decay — as  to  what  constituted  sexual  sin ;  and  there 
is  no  reason  to  think — except  where  His  attitude  to  sex  rela- 
tions implies  otherwise — that  He  repudiated  or  even  modified 
those  ideas. 


20  Id.,  p.  285. 

21  Zockler,  in   Strack  u.  Zockler,  Kurzg.  Komm.,  p.  280. 


372  CHRIST    AND    SINNERS. 

On  the  other  hand,  throughout  the  environment  of  pagan 
civilization  in  which  Christian  ideas  of  sexual  morality  had  to 
grow  up,  there  appears  everywhere  moral  depravity.--  Every 
form  of  luxury  that  the  knowledge  of  that  age  could  suggest — 
in  particular,  the  varied  and  powerful  incitements  of  the  bath^^ 
— was  employed  to  inflame  carnal  passion.  And  not  merely 
the  practice,  but,  what  is  of  more  fundamental  importance,  the 
theory  of  morality  was  corrupted.  Paganism  was  finding  it 
more  and  more  difficult  to  recognize  that  moral  sanctions  had 
any  place  at  all  in  the  sex  life. 2"* 

Had  there  not  been  available  in  these  circumstances,  as  the 
groundwork  of  the  reformed  morality,  the  ideas  which  Christ 
selected  from  the  Jewish  ethical  system  and  emphatically  re- 
affirmed, the  primitive  Christian  moralists  would  have  found  it 
far  more  difficult  to  discern  any  general  directive  principles. 
But  just  here  we  perceive  the  value  of  the  Jewish  factor  in 
the  formation  of  the  Christian  ethic  of  the  sexes.  However 
faulty  was  the  actual  state  of  Jewish  society  in  respect  of  the 
relations  of  the  sexes — and  there  is  contemporary  evidence 
forthcoming  to  its  discredit — its  theory  of  purity  was  at  least 
sounder  and  more  distinct  than  was  the  case  elsewhere. 

Christ's  sympathy  with  man's  experiences  accounts  for — 
what  is  perhaps  observable — His  peculiar  tenderness  toward 
people  who  had  incurred  actual  stains  on  their  sexual  nature. 
His  human  knowledge  of  the  power  of  the  instinct  and  of  the 
immense  difficulties  which  beset  the  spiritual  side  of 
its  development  caused  the  Divine  Love  in  Him,  not 
merely  to  stand,  and  welcome,  but  to  flow  forth  to  meet,  the 
penitent  prostitute  or  the  returning  prodigal  wasted  with  de- 
bauchery. The  story  of  Christ  and  the  woman  taken  in  adul- 
tery, which,  even  if  it  be  not  historic,  has  a  closer  connection 
with  the  primitive  tradition  than  even  Westcott  and   Hort-"^ 


22  Von  Dobschiitz,  op.  cit.,  p.  372. 

23  Cp.  H.  Ellis,  Studies,  vol.  iv,  ch.  iv. 

24  Von  Dobschiitz,  op.  cit.,  p.  52. 

25  E.  Nestle,  Expos.  Times,  vol.  xiii,  p.  95. 


ST.    PAUL   AND    THE    SEX    LIFE.  373 

allowed,  seems  truthfully  to  reflect  the  sympathetic  saving 
pity  which  the  Lord  had  for  the  penitent  sinner  against  sexual 
morality.26  The  same  insight  into  the  conditions  of  the  sexual 
problem  and  His  consequent  recognition  of  the  frequent  need 
of  the  concession  of  marriage  seems,  as  is  pointed  out  in  an- 
other chapter,  not  indeed!  to  lower  His  ideal  of  the  stability  of 
marriage,  but  to  influence  His  teaching  in  regard  to  the  prac- 
tical realization  of  that  ideal. 

Prominence  is  not  given,  in  Jesus  Christ's  own  teaching, 
to  any  special  abhorrence  of  particular  forms  of  sin.  Christ's 
insight  into  moral  problems  is  of  unrivalled  depth :  He  attacks 
the  spirit  which  works  behind  all  real  sin.  As  compared  with 
Christ's  teaching,  that  of  St.  Paul  perhaps  does  manifest  some- 
thing, in  the  concrete,  of  abhorrence  for  forms  of  sin;  and  not 
least  for  the  forms  of  it  connected  with  the  sexual  instinct.-^ 
His  soul  was  full  of  an  intense  horror  of  sexual  impurities,  a 
horror  continually  strengthened  by  the  commonness  of  the 
grossest  sexual  excesses  in  society  around  him.  This  feeling 
develops  to  a  slight  extent  in  his  mind  the  indiscriminating 
distrust  of  the  sexual  function  itself,  which  we  have  already 
noticed  as  being  widespread  in  humanity;  but  which  does  not 
belong  to  a  perfect  scheme  of  ethics.  St.  Paul  is  almost  driven 
to  depreciate  marriage.  Unless  we  accept  Professor  Ramsay's 
estimate  of  the  circumstances  of  the  composition  of  that  part 
of  St.  Paul's  first  letter  to  the  Corinthians  which  deals  with 
marriage^^ — a  theory  which  requires  a  somewhat  strained 
interpretation  of  the  introductory  thought — Ka\6v  dvOpwirw 
ywatKos  fj-r]  airTco-Qai — we  must,  it  seems,  conclude  with  W.  P. 


26  It  must  be  noted  that  some  writers,  both  ancient  and  modern, 
nave  more  or  less  willfully  misconstrued  Christ's  attitude  toward  sex- 
ual sins.  There  is  an  essential  difference  between  the  lax  regard  of  a 
sin,  and  a  sympathetic  estimate  of  the  conditions  in  which  it  occurred. 
For  a  just  estimate  of  Christ's  attitude  toward  offenders  against  the 
law  of  purity,  see  von  Dobschiitz,  op.  cit.,  Introduction,  p.  39. 

27  See  especially  Rom.  1 :  26ff. ;  I  Cor.  6  :  9-13ff. 

28  In  the  Expositor,  April  and  May,  1900. 


374  THE    SEX    QUESTION    AT    CORINTH. 

Paterson,  in  Hastings's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  s.  v.  "Mar- 
riage," that  the  mind  of  St.  Paul  inclines  to  a  more  ascetic 
presentation  of  the  ethics  of  sex  than  that  implied  in  our  Lord's 
own  attitude.  This  inclination  is,  however,  slight ;  and  it  was 
viewed  with  caution  by  the  apostle  himself.  His  readiness  to 
welcome  the  return  of  the  penitent  sinner  against  sexual 
morality  is  not  inferior  to  Christ's  own.  No  difference  of 
vital  importance  can  be  said  to  exist  between  his  views  and 
Christ's,  on  the  sexual  relation.  The  same  spirit  inspires  both 
teachers;  the  same  leading  ideas  dominate  their  reflections  in 
this  province  of  morals. 

Particularly  instructive  as  illustrating  the  process  by 
which  ideas  of  sexual  morality  were  elucidated  among  the 
first  Christians,  is  St.  Paul's  treatment  of  the  sex  question  in 
the  Church  at  Corinth,  where  a  false  theory  of  Christian 
emancipation  had  created  a  spirit  of  libertinism,  which  aimed 
at  reducing  the  married  woman  to  the  same  level  of  social 
esteem  as  the  hetaira  or  hierodule.  According  to  the  analysis 
made  by  von  Dobschiitz  of  the  situation  obscurely  presented  in 
I  Cor.  11 :  2-16,  the  social  conflict  between  the  married  women 
and  the  free-living  and  free-loving  women  came  to  a  head,  as 
is  the  wont  of  great  ethical  and  religious  questions,  over  a 
small  point  of  etiquette,  the  wearing  of  veils  in  the  assembled 
Christian  congregation.  The  veil  was  the  symbol  of  conjugal 
fidelity  in  the  matron,  and  generally  of  modesty  in  women. 
The  hetairse,  the  party  standing  for  female  emancipation,  re- 
garded unfavorably  the  assumption  of  the  veil  by  women. 
They  probably,  and  with  some  show  of  reason,  claimed  to  be 
the  female  leaders  in  education  and  progress ;  condemned  the 
seemingly  useless  strictness  of  the  moral  party,  and  twitted 
them  with  the  veil  as  a  badge  of  servitude. 

St.  Paul's  insight,  in  deciding  this  conventional  question 
between  the  two  classes  of  women,  is  so  remarkable  that  one 
may  fairly  see  in  it  an  evidence  of  his  special!  inspiration  by 
the  Spirit  of  God.  He  saw,  more  clearly  than  even  the  veiled 
women  themselves,  the  importance  underlying  the  point   for 


CHRISTIAN   CONCEPTION    OF   MARRIAGE.  375 

which  they  contended  with  an  obstinacy  which  was  at  once 
pathetic  and  morally  great.  He  perceived  the  real  drift  of 
hetairism;  he  saw  the  want  of  stability  inherent  in  even  its 
better  manifestations  in  history.  He  understood  its  social 
failure ;  and  though  his  broad  sympathies  forced  him  to  enter- 
tain the  idea  of  an  emancipation  of  women,  he  uncompromis- 
ingly maintained  that  right  moral  beginnings  were  essential 
to  true  progress. 

As  a  counterpoise  to  the  libertine  movement,  Encratite 
tendencies  were  driving  the  more  scrupulous  converts  in  the 
direction  of  Manichaean  or  Gnostic  asceticism.  But  as  St.  Paul 
withheld  his  assistance  from  a  false  realization  of  the  idea  of 
liberty,  so  neither  was  he,  in  spite  of  his  personal  readiness  to 
admit  the  highest  and  hardest  claims  of  self-sacrifice,  led  to 
give  an  undue  ethical  prominence  to  celibacy.  In  short,  no 
passage  in  the  history  of  morals  is  more  interesting  than  the 
series  of  efforts  by  which  St.  Paul,  bringing  his  heritage  of 
Jewish  ideas  into  touch  with  Greek  life,  and  at  the  same  time 
holding  those  ideas  in  a  liberal  spirit,  renovated  and  reaffirmed 
whatever  of  truth  and  soundness  remained  in  pagan  ethics ;  and 
drew  the  main  outlines  of  a  pure,  healthy,  and  comprehensive 
ethic  of  the  sexes. 

As  the  mortal  body  is  "clothed  upon"^^  with  the  spiritual 
body,  so  the  Christian  conception  of  marriage  as  a  religious 
state,  as  a  sacramental  ordinance,  envelops,  and  by  envelop- 
ing transforms  and  hallows  the  natural  conception  of  it  as  a 
social  institution.  Too  much  stress  should  not  be  laid  on  the 
fact  that  the  idea  of  marriage  as  a  sacrament  or  spiritual  com- 
pact does  not  appear  fully  formed  till  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
obscure  and  mystical  language  of  Eph.  5 :  22ff.  does  not  indeed 
afford  a  sure  basis  for  the  whole  elaborate  structure  of  legal 
enactments  which  Christian  canonists  of  a  later  date  built  upon 
it ;  but  marriage  here  and  elsewhere  in  the  New  Testament  is 
seen  to  be  elevated  into  an  ethical  region  in  touch  with  eternal 

29  II  Cor.  5  :  2,  4. 


376       CHRIST  RECOVERS  LOST  IDEALS. 

verities ;  and  all  later  Christian  teaching  on  marriage  must  be 
submitted  to  the  touchstone  of  this  lofty  conception. 

Rightly  estimating  this  idealism,  we  shall  allow  that 
Christianity^  by  incorporating  into  its  doctrine  of  marriage  all 
that  was  best  and  most  stable  in  the  natural  conception  of  it  ;30 
by  intensifying  all  that  there  was  in  human  society  of  reverent 
regard  for  the  estate  of  matrimony,  performed  a  work  of  incal- 
culable benefit  to  mankind,  and  gave  a  new  starting  point  to 
the  evolution  of  marriage  legislation,  and  to  all  subsequent 
thought  and  feeling  about  marriage ;  thus  making  it  more  than 
ever  a  powerful  factor  in  the  highest  progress. 

Without  doubt,  Jesus  Christ  taught  that  the  ideal  of  mar- 
riage indissoluble  should  be  the  guiding  principle  of  men's 
thoughts  upon  sexual  union,  the  high  point  whither  ethical 
teaching  on  sex  should  lead.  All  around  Him  in  human  society 
were  infinitely  lower  and  less  worthy  ideals.  All  were  pro- 
gressing along  lines  of  degeneration,  not  of  high  evolution.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  a  society's  practical  estimate  of  the 
sanctity  of  marriage — the  best  criterion  of  its  general  view  of 
sexual  morality — cannot  be  inferred  merely  from  the  state  of 
the  law  respecting  the  marriage  contract  and  divorce ;  for  there 
have  been  communities,  or  times  in  the  history  of  some  particu- 
lar community,  in  which  marriage  has  been  dissoluble  for 
several  causes  and  by  easy  processes ;  but  in  which,  practically, 
advantage  has  been  but  seldom  taken  of  the  ability  to  dissolve 
marriage ;  whereas,  at  other  times,  in  less  healthy  social  condi- 
tions, people  have  largely  availed  themselves  of  the  same 
opportunities  of  getting  rid  of  partners.^!    They  have  learned 


3*^  Crawley  {op.  cit.,  pp.  236ff.)  well  shows  from  the  side  of  natu- 
ral religion  how  men  in  a  primitive  state  have  formed  the  ideas  which 
establish  human  marriage  on  a  firm  ethical  basis.  The  nascent  con- 
ception of  marriage  as  a  sacrament  is  found  in  the  rudest  stages  of 
human  evolution,  expressing  itself  in  a  series  of  symbolic  acts  insti- 
tuting a  full  reciprocity,  or  even  a  theoretical  fusion  of  individualities 
between  man  and  wife. 

31 " 'In  the  early  days  of  Hebrew  history,'  says  Ewald,  'it  was 
only  in  exceptional  cases  that  husbands  made  an  evil  use  of  the  right 


MORALITY    IN    TIME  OF   CHRIST.  377 

to  put  an  easier  construction  on  the  law,  because  the  ideal  of 
marriage  has  become  lowered  in  their  public  opinion;  while 
the  sex  relation  is  freely  viewed  as  a  field  of  pleasure,  and 
ignored  as  a  source  of  obligations.  And  perhaps  it  would  be 
safe  to  say  that  in  our  Lord's  time  this  process  of  lowering 
ideals  and  vitiating  opinion  in  the  region  of  sexual  ethics  had 
advanced  farther  than  it  had  ever  done  before  in  human  his- 
tory, or  than  it  has  done  since. 

The  ideas  of  marriage  current  among  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  who  tolerated  temporary  cohabitation,  and  gave  a 
large  liberty  in  the  matter  of  divorce,  did  not  tend  to  educate 
mankind  up  to  the  knowledge  that  an  enduring  love,  into  which 
entered  the  elements  of  volition  and  duty,  as  well  as  those  of 
sexual  attraction  and  emotion,  is  the  animating  principle  of 
human  marriage.  On  an  equally  low  or  even  a  lower  plane, 
are  the  ideas  of  marriage  reflected  in  the  religious  life  of 
Asia  Minor.  "This  religion,"  says  Professor  Ramsay,  speak- 
ing of  the  ancient  paganism  of  Phrygia,  "did  not  recognize 
marriage  as  part  of  the  divine  life.  Marriage  was  a  human 
device,  an  outrage  upon  the  divine  freedom  .  .  .  there 
is  not  even  the  most  rudimentary  conception  that  famil- 
iarity with  any  other  than  a  wife  is  wrong  at  all  times."^- 
Similarly,  in  the  social  life  of  the  Jews  of  Christ's  time,  the 
progress  of  opinion  about  marriage  had  declined  from  former 
standards  and  was  rapidly  degenerating. 

Divorce  was  probably  common,  in  spite  of  the  restraints 
put  upon  it  by  the  prophetic  teaching  and  by  the  best  teaching 
of  the  rabbis.-"^^ 

Christ  thus  found  the  thoughts  of  men  becoming  every- 
where corrupt  in  regard  to  marriage  and  to  sexual  relations 


to  divorce  a  wife.'  Among  the  Greeks  of  the  Homeric  age,  divorce 
seems  to  have  been  almost  unknown,  though  it  afterwards  became  an 
every-day  event  in  Greece ;  and  in  Rome,  in  the  earHest  times,  it  was 
probably  very  little  used."     (Westermarck,  op.  cit.,  p.  523.) 

^~  Expository  Times,  vol.  x,  p.  108. 

33  Edersheim,  L  &  T.,  vol.  ii,  p.  332. 


378  THE   IDEAL   AND    ITS    REALIZATION. 

generally.  There  was  immense  danger  that  the  ethical  educa- 
tion of  the  race,  upon  which  the  manifold  reciprocity  of  sex 
was  intended  to  exert,  and  had  exerted,  so  powerful  an  in- 
fluence for  good,  would  collapse  when  this  factor  ceased  to 
have  a  beneficial  operation.  Therefore,  Christ  made  one  of 
His  most  powerful  appeals  to  men's  consciences  at  this  threat- 
ened point,  the  region  of  sexual  ethics.  He  accepted  such  con- 
temporaneous ideas  of  sexual  morality  as  still  retained  a  bene- 
ficial influence  on  men's  moral  sense,  and  were  helping  the 
evolution  of  perfect  conceptions  of  love  and  chastity;  and 
where,  as  in  regard  to  marriage,  the  existing  ideas  and  senti- 
ments were  corrupt.  He  purified  and  restored  them  by  His 
teaching. 

But  marriage  laws  and  doctrines  conceived  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  Christian  thought,  while  they  must  never  be  disjoined 
from  the  idealism  of  the  New  Testament,  while  they  cannot 
have  any  other  starting  point  than  it,  must  be  elaborated  and 
expressed  in  accordance  with  a  generalization  which  cannot  be 
better  stated  than  in  the  words  of  Dr.  W.  P.  Paterson  in 
Hastings's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  s.  v.  Marriage:  "Certainly 
it  must  be  granted  that  the  Christian  morality  does  not  consist 
of  a  cast-iron  system  of  laws,  but  rather  of  germinal  principles 
which  entail  the  labor  and  responsibility  of  thinking  out  their 
inmost  significance,  and  judging  as  to  their  proper  application." 
Neither  Jesus  Christ  nor  St.  Paul  were  engaged  in  framing 
statutes  about  marriage ;  they  were  enunciating  abstract  ideal 
truths  in  the  spirit  of  prophecy. 

The  history  of  marriage  among  Christian  nations  shows 
that  the  task  of  practically  applying  the  principles  of  the  Gos- 
pel has  not  always  been  considerately  or  happily  performed. 
Upon  the  modern,  progressive  Church  lies  the  necessity  of 
subjecting  the  ideas  about  marriage  which,  under  the  combined 
influences  of  ecclesiastical  Christianity  and  Christianized  law, 
have  become  more  or  less  crystallized  in  society,  to  a  temperate 
and  truth-lovinsf  criticism. 


THE    ATONEMENT   AND    SINS    OF    SEX.  379 

Nowhere,  perhaps,  do  we  find  the  power  of  sin  in 
humanity  taking  to  itself  more  horrible  and  revolting  forms 
than  in  the  life  of  sex.  So  repellent,  indeed,  is  the  full  study 
of  the  dissolution  of  the  sexual  instinct  that  but  very  few 
minds  have  ventured  to  undertake  it;  to  investigate  and  classify 
the  painful  phenomena,  to  analyze  and  estimate  the  causes  of 
such  dread  results.  In  modern  theology,  though  a  study  of  sin 
as  complete  and  searching  as  possible  really  belongs  to  the 
department  of  theology,  the  discussion  of  sexual  criminality  is 
generally  tabooed.  Yet  in  the  Bible  itself  the  sins  of  sex,  and 
sexual  relations  generally,  are  viewed  as  necessary  subjects  for 
the  consideration  of  inspired  and  righteous  men.  Nihil  hii- 
manum  aliemim.  Nor  is  the  discussion  of  sins  of  sex  excluded 
from  the  system  of  the  great  medieval  theologians. 

Therefore,  in  concluding  the  present  chapter,  we  cannot 
forget  that  the  Atonement  made  by  the  Son  of  God  for  the 
sins  of  men  touches  the  whole  circle  of  human  sin  at  every 
point ;  and  nowhere  does  the  mercy  of  God  shine  more  brightly 
than  just  here,  where  the  mystery  of  the  Atonement  and  those 
sins  which  most  affright  the  conscience  of  mankind  are  brought 
into  contact. 

For  centuries  past,  thinkers  of  great  power  and  of  devout 
purpose  have  meditated  on  the  Atonement,  casting  rays  of 
light  far  into  its  unfathomable  depths,  now  in  this  direction, 
now,  in  that ;  but  it  may  well  be  believed  that  never  while 
human  faculties  are  limited  by  material  conditions,  perhaps 
never  fully,  even  in  the  hereafter,  will  that  mystery  of  love 
become  patent  to  a  created  mind.  Yet  some  reflections  on  it 
may  be  made  at  this  point,  showing  impressively — if  the 
writer  can  transfer  to  other  minds  the  impression  made  upon 
his  own — the  transcendent  moral  greatness  of  Him  whom  God 
gave  freely  as  a  propitiatory  gift  for  the  sin  of  the  world. ^^ 


3^  "The  crucified  Christ  is  the  votive-gift  {l\a(XTr)pLov)  of  the 
Divine  Love  for  the  salvation  of  men."  (Deissmann,  Bib.  Studies, 
E.  tr.,  p.  133.) 


380  THE   BEARING   OF    SIN. 

Let  us  inquire  how  any  pure  and  sensitive  soul,  such  as 
now  and  then  we  have  knowledge  of,  is  affected  by  the 
"bearing"  of  sin,  by  the  oppressive  and  miserable  burden  of 
guilt ;  let  us  throw  ourselves,  by  the  aid  of  our  experience  and 
by  an  effort  of  the  imagination,  into  the  situation.  There  are 
three  stages  to  be  considered : — 

First,  the  soul  is  oppressed  by  an  admitted  weight  of  guilt, 
by  the  consciousness  of  sins  formerly  committed  and  not  yet 
devoid  of  attraction.  A  great  degree  of  spiritual  agony  is  im- 
plied in  the  effort  of  bearing  guilt  in  such  conditions.  Regret, 
fear,  shame,  the  memory  of  the  past,  the  struggle  with  the 
present,  combine  to  create  in  a  soul  which,  imperfection,  and 
defilement  notwithstanding,  is  still  sensitive  to  the  charm  of 
goodness,  an  intense  mental  and  spiritual  anguish,  perhaps 
accompanied  by  physical  distress.  Yet  the  burden  is  borne  be- 
cause the  soul  recognizes;  that  it  is  in  a  manner  rightly  im- 
posed ;  allowing  for  heredity  and  external  circumstances,  there 
has  been  all  through  an  element  of  responsibility  which  at 
least  partially  explains  and  justifies  the  imposition  of  the  moral 
load. 

But  secondly,  the  soul  may  be  called  gn  to  bear  an  unjust, 
undeserved  imputation  of  guilt.  Let  any  minister  of  the 
Gospel,  for  example,  imagine  to  himself  his  mental  state,  if,  as 
he  preached  the  Word  to  his  congregation,  he  were  to  feel  upon 
his  conscience,  first,  the  accumulated  and  concentrated  weight 
of  his  own  sin ;  and  after  he  had  freed  himself,  by  a  great  effort 
of  faith  in  the  Gospel  promise  of  forgiveness,  from  the  oppres- 
sive sense  of  this  burden,  there  were  to  be  borne  in  upon  his 
mind  the  dreadful  conviction  that  his  congregation,  even  as  he 
preached  to  them,  were  coming  to  believe  him  guilty  of  crimes 
of  which  he  was  really  innocent,  and  which  his  spirit  utterly 
loathed.  In  the  darkening  gaze  of  his  people  he  reads  that  he 
is  wrongfully  condemned  ;  relentlessly  accused  of  the  worst  vio- 
lations of  the  moral  law,  of  offenses  of  inexpressible  ghastli- 
ness,  such  as  the  sinful  world  itself  cannot  endure  to  contem- 
plate, even  as  set  down  and  classified  on  the  emotionless  page 


CHRIST   MADE   SIN   FOR   US.  381 

of  science.  And  his  soul  cries  out  within  him  in  a  passionate 
and  agonizing  protestation  of  his  innocence;  indeed,  it  is  the 
consciousness  of  innocence  which  alone,  in  such  awful  circum- 
stances, supports  his  being. 

But  even  yet  the  extreme  depths  of  spiritual  agony  are  not 
reached;  for  what  if,  by  some  hypersensitiveness  of  moral 
sympathy,  the  very  consciousness  of  innocence  at  length  de- 
serts such  a  soul,  and  a  process  of  tremendous  and  overpower- 
ing self-accusation  sets  in?  The  soul  perceives  within  itself 
the  extent  of  the  capacities  for  evil  latent  in  human  nature. 
From  an  external  observation  of  the  foulest  criminality,  it 
passes  to  the  recognition  of  such  criminality  incorporated  in 
its  own  experience. 

Something  like  this,  according  to  Godet's  profound  theory 
of  the  Atonement,"^"^  was  the  spiritual  process  by  which  Jesus 
Christ  condemned  sin  in  human  flesh.  "By  an  unfathomable 
prodigy  of  love,  He  entered  into  the  horror  of  the  sins  of 
which  He  was  each  day  witness,  as  though  He  had  Himself 
been  the  responsible  author  of  them." 

Scarcely  can  Christian  believers,  even  of  the  keenest  and 
most  far-reaching  spiritual  vision,  realize  what  tremendous 
import  there  is  in  the  mysterious  identification  of  Christ  (for 
purposes  of  the  Atonement)  with  sinful  man.  There  is  no 
thought  more  staggering  to  the  imagination  than  that  of  the 
appalling,  one  had  almost  said  illimitable,  capacities  for  sin  in 
man,  and  the  extent  to  which  those  capacities  are  actually  ful- 
filled. There  are  sins  which  men  shrink  from,  not  so  much 
on  account  of  the  punishments  which  might  follow  them,  as 
from  their  own  inherent  horror.  Let  the  reader  but  think  of 
any  sin  for  which  he  entertains  a  peculiar  dread,  and  imagine 
the  anguish  of  his  feelings,  if  he  knew  that  somehow  that  sin 
was  within  him,  its  power  depressing  the  soul,  the  responsi- 
bility for  it  burdening  and  torturing  the  conscience.     The  bare 


35  The  Atonement  in  Modern  Religious  Thought,  p.  341. 


382  CHRIST'S    BEARING    OF    SIN. 

imagination  of  a  sin,  ripening  into  a  mental  delusion,  has 
driven  men  sometimes  into  insanity  and  suicide. 

When,  therefore,  it  is  understood  that  Jesus  Christ,  with  a 
conscience  more  sensitive  than  we  can»conceive  of,  because  the 
union  of  His  soul  with  the  Divine  Holiness  was  complete,  felt 
within  Himself,  by  some  operation  of  the  Spirit — not  as  if  He 
saw  them  and  studied  them  from  outside — but  with  an  inward, 
personal  responsibility,  the  intense  and  direful  horror  of  all 
the  sins  of  which  human  history  has  record,  the  abominable 
ingenious  cruelties,  the  base  deceits,  the  loathsome  impurities 
formerly  unnamable,  for  which  scientists  have  only  recently 
invented  names,  the  frightful  murders  and  gross  excesses — all 
the  real,  awful  sins  of  humanity;  when  this  is  pondered,  the 
mind  utterly  fails  to  grasp  the  full  significance  of  the  fact. 
That  Christ  bore  the  sins  of  humanity — this  general  proposi- 
tion is  admitted  by  millions ;  but  such  sins  as  defile  the  sex  life, 
and  with  such  a  bearing ! 

As  the  method  of  the  historic  Atonement  transcends  our 
human  imagination  and  intelligence,  so  does  its  eternal  opera- 
tion. Canon  Jelf,  in  a  powerful  and  sympathetic  paper  pub- 
lished in  The  Guardian  for  October  9,  1901,  speaks  solemnly 
of  "the  fearful  efifects  in  time  of  those  widespread  offenses 
against  chastity,  as  forecasting  their  still  more  fearful  efifects 
in  eternity."  And  if  in  time  the  connection  between  sexual  sin 
and  ensuing  misery  is  not  always  clearly  discernible,  since  with 
impurity  other  influences  are  frequently  co-operating  factors 
in  producing  some  dire  spectacle  of  human  ruin,  none  the  less 
clearly  does  a  reasonable  faith  point  us  to  a  future  consum- 
mation of  perfect  justice  in  relation  to  the  moral  side  of  the 
sex  life;  none  the  less  solemnly  does  a  trained  ethical  percep- 
tion warn  us  that  if  moral  law  rules  the  universe — and  our 
deepest  intuitions  support  that  belief — the  element  of  responsi- 
bility in  sexual  sin,  as  in  all  other,  guarantees  some  future  terri- 
ble recompensing,  probably  in  the  nature  of  something  self- 
inflicted,^6  of  conscious,  persistent,  deliberate  sin. 

36  R.  H.  Charles,  Eschatology,  p.  405  (ed.  2,  p.  463). 


EFFECT    OF   THE   ATONEMENT.  383 

This  line  of  thought  does  indeed  lead  in  a  direction  of 
somber  fear ;  but  in  contrast'  with  the  most  gloomy  aspects  of 
judgment,  we  have  the  eternal  mystery  of  the  Atonement, 
fathomless  in  hope  and  power.  Here,  however,  we  are  face  to 
face  with  immense  problems  of  human  destiny,  lying  in  their 
fullness  beyond  the  scope  of  a  work  like  the  present. 

It  remains  to  remind  ourselves  of  the  need  for  the  pres- 
ent application  of  Christ's  saving  power  to  sinners  against  sex- 
ual morality ;  and  to  consider  how  that  application  is  to  be  kept 
true  to  its  principles  and  made  efficacious  in  its  working.  In 
ethical  processes  the  central  factor,  the  all-important  element, 
is  the  appeal  to  the  will.  It  is  thi^  that  gives  impulsion  to  all 
attempts  at  preaching  and  teaching  which  are  truly  inspired 
with  the  spirit  of  Christianity.  Christian  thought  cannot  wel- 
come a  wholly  non-ethical  science  as  a  remedial  agency  in  the 
sphere  of  sexual  vice  or  in  any  other.  Scientific  therapeutics 
based  on  an  inadequate  psychology  of  sex  may  not  only  ignore, 
but  be  directly  hostile  to  ethics — and  thus  ultimately  fail  of 
accomplishing  their  remedial  purpose ;  for  ethical  responsibility 
is  an  essential  element  of  sex  psychology.  It  is  such  a  consid- 
eration, for  example,  that  causes  a  Christian  moralist  to  view 
unfavorably  the  employment  of  hypnotic  methods  of  curing  the 
grosser  forms  of  sexual  perversion,  when  such  methods  are  ac- 
companied by  visits  under  medical  sanction  to  brothels  for  the 
purpose  of  attempting  fornication.  This  cure  is  certainly  non- 
ethical,  and  admittedly  of  dubious  efficacy.-^'"  It  gives  the 
sexual  instinct  a  partial  impulse  toward  its  normal  objective; 
but  does  it  strengthen  and  elevate  the  moral  purpose?  Does 
it   rouse  the   will   itself,   or   endue   it   with    Divine   grace,   to 


S''  Moll,  on  hygienic  as  well  as  ethical  grounds,  strongly  discoun- 
tenances prostitution  as  a  factor  in  the  treatment  of  sexual  perverts, 
or  as  a  means  of  sexual  experiment  when  virility  is  in  question ;  and, 
like  Fere,  counsels  by  preference  the  education  of  the  pronounced  per- 
vert in  the  direction  of  chastity,  or  at  least  to  the  experiment  of  a  dis- 
ciplined platonic  friendship  with  one  of  the  other  sex,  as  a  preliminary 
to  marriage  (o/-.  cit.,  pp.  998,  1038).     Q.  Gemelli,  o/'.  cit.,  p.  229. 


384  PREACHING   OF    SALVATION. 

struggle  with  that  composite  force  of  diseased  heredity,  of  mis- 
evolution,  of  dangerous  environment,  of  perverted  and  exag- 
gerated desires,  which  theologians  gather  up  into  the  one  word 
temptationf 

Preaching  and  teaching,  moral  suasion  and  religious  in- 
fluence are  still  the  most  powerful  weapons  of  the  Christian 
Church  in  its  battle  with  sexual  vice.^^  Wisely  and  forcibly 
employed,  they  are  the  best  means  of  dispelling  pernicious 
ignorance  on  questions  of  sexual  morality,  rousing  the  dor- 
mant sense  of  responsibility,  and  invigorating  the  enfeebled 
will.  Throughout  human  society  there  is  every  occasion  for 
the  proper  exercise  of  hortatory  and  educational  methods  of 
diffusing  the  power  of  the  Atonement  in  regard  to  sexual  sin. 
In  Confirmation  classes,  in  the  family,  in  the  school,  in  the 
pulpit,  in  the  prison — for  the  removal  of  penal  restraint  in  con- 
nection with  some  forms  of  sexual  vice  is  not  yet  proved  to 
be  a  desideratum — by  purity  organizations  and  the  distribu- 
tion of  Christian  literature  dealing  with  sex  problems,  the 
preaching  of  the  Cross  of  Christ,  with  its  reasonableness  and 
its  advocacy  of  self-control  and  self-renunciation,  may  be 
brought  into  touch  with  the  sex  life.  But  as  to  those  on  whom 
devolves  the  performance  of  any  part  of  this  duty,  no  in- 
dolence or  false  delicacy  must  hinder  them  from  becoming 
genuine  students  of  their  subject.  If  a  non-ethical,  non- 
Christian  science  of  sex  is  inadequate  and  dangerous,  scarcely 
less  so  is  an  unscientific,  poorly  informed  hortatory  teaching 
seeking  to  arm  itself  with  the  aegis  of  Christianity. 

The  present  writer  remembers  hearing  a  sermon  on  purity 
delivered  to  a  congregation  of  men  in  London  by  one  of  the 
Cowley  Fathers,  the  late  Rev.  B.  W.  Maturin.  The  preacher 
in  this  case  had  evidently  given  to  his  subject  careful  and  exten- 
sive preparation;  and  the  result  was  a  pulpit  oration  of  quite 
extraordinary   force,  the  impression  of  which  would  not  be 


38  I   am  in  full  general  accord  with  Forster    (op.  cit.,  pp.  217ff.) 
on  this  point. 


PURENESS    AND    KNOWLEDGE.  385 

effaced  in  a  lifetime.  Too  often,  it  is  to  be  feared,  "men  o)ily" 
sermons,  owing  to  a  lack  of  the  power  and  knowledge  that 
come  from  devout  and  scientific  study,  not  only  fail  of  doing 
much  good,  but  invite  criticism  as  to  the  weakness'  of  the 
Church's  methods  in  coping  with  sins  of  impurity.  The  Word 
of  God  places  pureness  and  knowledge  in  close  conj unction. ^^ 
Preachers  of  Christian  purity  must  see  that  they  be  not  dis- 
joined. 

39  II  Cor.  6:6. 


APPENDIX. 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE  A,  ON  PRIMITIVE  MARRIAGE. 

In  the  inquiry  as  to  what  was  the  primitive  type  of  sexual 
union  in  humanity,  the  question  whether  an  instinctive  tend- 
ency to  monogamy,  or  at  least  the  existence  of  states  of  mar- 
riage that  recognized  mutual  responsibility,  is  found  in  the 
lower  creation  where  it  comes  nearest  to  man  in  the  evolution- 
ary series,  becomes  an  important  one.  We  naturally  look  prin- 
cipally to  the  higher  quadrumana.  If  the  state  of  marriage  is 
found  among  them,  the  inference  is  almost  irresistible  that  it 
obtained  among  the  immediately  prehuman  ancestors.  And,  in 
fact,  the  evidence  shows  that  even  if  the  predominance  of 
monogamy  among  these  animals  is  not  established,  their  sex- 
ual life  expresses  itself  at  any  rate  in  some  type  of  marriage, 
and  is  not  satisfied  with  promiscuity. i 

It  is  not  unreasonable  to  presume  that  the  monogamic 
tendency  had  entered  into  competition  with  other  matrimonial 
tendencies,  and  was  indeed  perhaps  vigorously  operating, 
already  in  the  immediately  prehuman  ancestors ;  and  this  being 
so,  the  argument  employed  by  Rosenthal  against  Westermarck,^ 
that  the  latter's  attribution  of  monogamy  to  primitive  man  con- 
tradicts the  evolutionary  law,  which  works  from  the  general 
to  the  particular,  loses  its  force. 

At  any  rate,  by  the  prehuman  existence  of  the  state  or 
habit  of  marriage  in  a  large  sense,  conditions  are  created  favor- 
able to  the  distinguishing  of  a  particular  type  of  marriage  as 

1  Westermarck,  Hist,  of  Hum.  Marriage,  p.  508;  Howard,  Hist, 
of  Matrim.  Instit.,  vol.  i,  p.  97;  Fallaize,  art.  Family,  in  Hastings,  Encyc. 
Rel.  Eth.,  vol.  V. 

2  Rosenthal,  Der  Ursprung  der  Ehe,  in  Die  Neue  Gen.,  Jahrg.  5, 
Heft  4,  p.  139. 

(387) 


388  THEORY    OF    PROMISCUITY. 

the  ethical  ideal  for  the  sex  life  as  evolved  in  humanity  proper ; 
and  we  shall  presently  follow  up  a  line  of  thought  which  sug- 
gests that  a  particular  type  was  in  fact  so  selected,  and  that 
this  type  was  monogamy. 

But  first,  let  us  take  account  of  some  of  the  chief  counter- 
indications,  some  of  the  phenomena  which  may  suggest  that 
whatever  use  may  be  made  in  the  discussion  of  the  aforesaid 
inference  from  animal  marriage,  humanity's  evolution  has,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  included  a  stage  of  sexuaf  promiscuity  con- 
stituting an  unsettled  period  of  primitive  transition,  before 
monogamy  or  any  other  form  of  responsible  human  marriage 
came  into  vogue. 

The  first  of  these  phenomena  is  prostitution.  In  antiquity, 
and  in  present-day  communities  which  have  retained  the  tradi- 
tions of  antiquity,  the  centers  of  prostitution  are  temples  and 
their  precincts,  or  certain  establishments  having  a  quasi- 
religious  character,  which  occupy  positions  midway  between 
temples  and  entirely  secular  brothels."'  Parallel  to  these  local 
centers  of  sexual  license  are  temporal  centers,  particular  dates, 
festivals,  and  points  of  time  at  which  the  sexes  mingle  with 
the  utmost  freedom. 

These  facts  are  interpreted  by  many  anthropologists 
as  implying  an  anterior  state  of  general  promiscuity ;  and  in 
particular  Bloch,  who  illustrates  the  subject  with  immense 
learning,  puts  forward  that  view.  But  when  we  look  more 
closely,  in  many  of  the  examples  Bloch  has  given,  traces  of  a 
stricter  ethical  theory  of  sex  relations  are  visible  amid  all  the 
abandonment.  Frequently,  the  license  is  condoned  only  in  con- 
nection with  some  festival :  "We  are  like  swine  while  the  feast 
lasts,"  said  a  chief  in  reference  to  the  Manga  mysteries.  Or, 
as  in  Formosa,  adults  while  practising  the  grossest  license 
shrink  from  being  seen  by  young  people.  Or  the  manifesta- 
tions of  irresponsible  love  are  a  rehearsal,  motived  by  super- 
stitious— i.e.,  quasi-religious  or  quasi-scientific — ideas,  of  the 


2  I.  Bloch,  Die  Prostitution,  ch.  ii. 


GROUP    MARRIAGE.  389 

sexual  activities  proper  to  marriage  itself,  and  are  discoun- 
tenanced after  marriage.  And  even  if,  as  among  some  peoples, 
such  license,  by  its  reappearance  and  social  toleration  among 
the  married,  has  the  guise  of  a  reaffirmation;  of  the  sexual 
rights  of  the  individual,  the  right  to  try  again  after  failure, — 
this  class  of  cases  being  connected  with  physical  or  moral  fail- 
ure supervening  on  marriage;  such  an  affirmation  does  not 
destroy  the  general  conception  of  the  obligatory  character 
of  marriage.  Or,  again,  a  symbolic  recognition  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  marriage  maintains  itself;  or  the  women  in  whom 
promiscuous  relations  with  men  are  socially  tolerated  are 
slaves,  foreigners,  or  (as  said  above)  matrimonial  failures. 
Or*  in  other  cases  the  sexual  license,  even  when  tolerated  by 
custom  or  regulated  by  law,  is  still  regarded  somewhat  askance 
by  the  collective  social  consciousness;  or  once  more,  even 
where  quasi-religious  prostitution  flourishes  vigorously,  men 
try  to  protect  their  wives  or  assert  their  own  conjugal  rights  in 
the  face  of  it.  In  view  of  such  modifying  features,  the  ex- 
hibitions of  casual  and  unregulated  love  furnished  by  uncivil- 
ized and  primitive  races  afiford  doubtful  support  to  the  theory 
of  primitive  promiscuity  which  it  is  attempted  to  base  upon 
them.  Indeed  we  shall  presently  see  that  temple-prostitution 
implies,  on  Bloch's  own  showing,  the  existence  of  an  earlier 
custom  which  suggests  primitive,  and  possibly  even  religiously 
grounded  monogamy. 

At  this  point,  however,  another  phenomenon  which  has 
been  adduced  in  proof  of  primitive  promiscuity  claims  our 
attention.  This  is  the  Australian  group-marriage  so  fully 
described  by  Spencer  and  Gillen,^  and  other  writers  on 
Australian  anthropology. 

Whoever  affirms  primitive  promiscuity  on  the  strength  of 
this  phenomenon  has  to  prove,  in  regard  to  the  latter,  two 
propositions :  first,  that  group-marriage  indicates  anterior  pro- 
miscuity in  the  Australian  race  itself ;  secondly — without  which 

4  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia;  Northern  Tribes  of  Central 
Australia. 


390  GROUP    MARRIAGE. 

the  first  proposition  is  abortive  for  its  main  purpose"' — that  the 
Australian  race  stands  closest  to  primitive  man,  and  represents 
him  to  us  most  truly. 

The  latter  proposition,  which  it  is  convenient  to  consider 
first,  has  not  been  proved.  It  has  indeed  been  asserted*^  that 
the  Hominidze  were  evolved  in  the  Australian  continent.  But 
it  is  more  generally  believed  that  the  now  submerged  lands  to 
the  southeast  of  Asia  contained  their  center  of  origin  i'''  and 
though  it  is  thus  brought  near  to  Australia,  yet  this  fact  does 
not  give  the  Australian  race  any  claim  to  be  nearer  in  type  or 
in  ideas  to  primitive  man  than  the  Andamanese,  who  are 
monogamous,^  or  other  negrito  stocks  among  which  group- 
marriage  is  not  the  prevalent  form  of  sexual  union,  nor,  where 
it  appears,  is  it  modelled  on  the  Australian  system. 

The  fact  is  that  the  claim  of  group-marriage  to  priority, 
in  respect  of  monogamy,  or  any  other  type  of  marriage,  must 
be  judged  by  the  inherent  probabilities  of  the  case.  The 
external  evidence  as  to  its  superior  antiquity  is  uncertain.^ 


5  Westermarck,  Moral  Ideas,  vol.  ii,  p.  396. 

6  By  Schoetensach,  qti.  in  Duckworth,  Morpholog>'  and  Anthro- 
pology, p.  545. 

■^  A.  H.  Keane,  arts.  Asia,  Australasia,  and  Ethnolog}%  in  Hastings, 
Encyc.  Rel.  Ethics. 

8  R.  C.  Temple,  in  Hastings,  op.  cit..  art.  Andamans. 

9  Even  in  the  races  which  present  the  most  plausible  general  ap- 
pearance of  primitiveness,  large  possibilities  of  degenerative  develop- 
ment have  to  be  allowed  for.  The  most  obvious  nnplications  of  their 
social  organization  and  religious  attitude  are  not  necessarily  the 
soundest.  The  custom  of  arranging  child  marriages,  for  example,  is 
a  considerable  set  off  to  presumed  indications  of  primitiveness.  A 
community  which  holds  this  custom,  as  the  Australian  natives  and  the 
Todas  (Spencer  and  Gillen,  Native  Tribes,  pp.  558ff. ;  Rivers,  The 
Todas,  ch.  xxii),  must  have  advanced  far  from  the  primitive  attitude 
to  marriage ;  and  there  is  consequently  the  less  reason  to  expect  the 
suggested  primitive  connection  of  such  phenomena  of  quasi-promis- 
cuity  as  are  there  met  with.  Have  we  the  right  to  assume  that  the 
peculiar  ideas^  and  practices  of  sexual  morality  among  the  Todas  are 
primitive,  any  more  than  that  their  buffalo  ritual  is  so?  There  is  a 
suggestive  paper  by  R.  E.  Freeth  on  the  possibilities  of  degeneration 


PRIMITIVE    SOCIAL   ORGANIZATION.  391 

By  the  use  of  the  scientific  imagination  we  may  bring 
before  our  minds  the  steps  by  which  the  contemporary  sys- 
tems of  Australian  group-marriage  will  have  been  reached. 
The  present  writer  believes  with  Westermarck,^^  that  a  rudi- 
mentary but  recognizable  type  of  the  family,  not  the  horde,  is 
the  primitive  basis  of  human  society.  But  even  if  with  many 
anthropologists  we  use  the  horde  in  drawing  our  first  picture 
of  society,  that  unit  should  not  be  exhibited  in  a  way  that  begs 
the  question  at  issue;  for  it  can  be  shown  that  the  monogamic 
tendency  operated  in  it  from  the  first.  There  is  one  thing 
to  which  Spencer  and  Gillen,  though  they  note  its  existence 
among  the  Australians, ^^  have  not  given  due  weight  in  their 
interpretation  of  the  group-marriage  phenomenon.  That  is 
love-preference.  Even  in  the  horde  a  particular  man  tended 
by  virtue  of  love-preference  to  employ  his  protective  and 
other  energies  principally  in  favor  of  a  particular  woman  and 
her  children,  as  being  her  appanages ;  and  he  would  do  this 
without  necessarily  knowing  that  he  himself  had  procreated 
those  children,  as  in  fact  it  may  be  assumed  owing  to  the  love- 
preference,  that  he  had  done.  Primitive  ignorance  of  patern- 
ity may  now  be  regarded  as  a  proved  fact;ii  but  it  has  no 
adverse  bearing  on  the  matter  now  under  consideration. 

Another  man,  or  perhaps  a  group  of  men,  in  the  horde, 
the  woman's  uterine  brothers,  would  also  regard  her  with 
special  attention  and  responsibility  ;12  but  for  the  reasons 
adduced  by  Westermarck  and  Havelock  Ellis  they  would  not  be 
sexually  attracted  to  her,  as  would  the  man  who  stood  to  her 
in  a  more  distant  relation  in  the  horde.  In  other  words,  the 
quasi-paternal  authority  exercised  by  the  mother's  brother  in 
the  horde  would  not  impair  the  sex  rights  exercised  by  man 

and  retrogression  among  the  Melanesians,  in  The  Southern  Cross  Log, 
March,  1913. 

^'i  See  further  Fallaize,  op.  cit.,  p.  718a. 

10  Native  Tribes  of  Cent.  Australia,  chs.  xvi,  xvii. 

11  Fallaize,  art.  Family,  Hastings,  op.  cit.,  vol.  v,  p.  781b ;  E.  S. 
Hartland,  Primitive  Paternity. 

i2/(/.,  art.  cit. 


392  PRIMITIVE    SOCIAL   ORGANIZATION. 

and  wife  in  relation  to  each  other ;  and  it  was  through  the 
recognition  of  those  rights  and  the  developing  general  union 
based  upon  them  that  the  husband  gradually  acquired  paternal 
position  and  authority,  displacing  the  mother's  brother;  as 
well  as  marital  position  and  authority.  Thus  the  monogamic 
family  would  rise  in  and  along  with  the  horde;  and  it  is  im- 
portant to  note  that  on  this  view  marriage  (i.e.,  the  state  of 
marriage)  is  not  as  some,  including  Westermarck,  have  sup- 
posed, the  product  of  the  family ;  but,  as  the  Bible  assumes, 
marriage  has  the  priority  over  the  family. 

Australian  group-marriage,  then,  does  not  disprove  the 
operation  of  a  monogamic  tendency,  which  indeed  continues  to 
act  within  the  system.  It  is  moreover  difficult  even  to  imagine 
a  state  of  real  promiscuity,  with  no  love-preferences  and 
jealousies  tending  to  create  obligations  and  durable  unions. 

Group-marriage  presents  us  with  a  large  number  of  mar- 
riage prohibitions,  most  if  not  all  of  which,  however,  are  sus- 
pended in  certain  circumstances  and  on  particular  occasions. 

Now,  the  genesis  of  such  prohibitions  is,  as  the  two 
scientists  just  mentioned  have  shown,  sexual  indifference  be- 
tween persons  living  in  close  contact  from  infancy.  This  con- 
dition would  arise  in  a  circle  of  persons  within  the  horde  ;i'^ 
and  as  this  fact  became  established,  it  would  give  food  for  re- 
flection to  that  part  of  the  horde  whither  primitive  society 
always  looks  for  legislative  wisdom,  the  old  men. 


13  This  principle  of  sexual  indifference  operates  primarily  among 
persons  of  approximate  ages,  i.e.,  brothers  and  sisters.  The  psycho- 
logical conditions  of  the  relations  between  parents  and  children  are  dif- 
ferent, and  have  been  described  by  Moll  (The  Sexual  Life  of  the  Child, 
pp.  70f.)  and  Freud  (Drei  Abhandlungen  zur  Sexual  Theorie,  pp.  70ff.), 
who  have  shown  that  the  principle  in  question  does  not  always  act,  as 
from  child  to  parent,  at  a  certain  stage  of  the  child's  sexual  growth. 
It  acts  none  the  less  from  parent  to  child,  which  is  the  main  condition 
requisite  for  the  avoidance  of  incest.  If  we  review  the  whole  course 
of  family  life,  we  perceive  that  this  principle  is  almost  always  acting 
in  one  of  the  two  directions  named ;  and  usually  (after  the  close  of 
Moll's  "second  period  of  childhood")  in  both  at  once. 


PRIMITIVE    SOCIAL   ORGANIZATION.  393 

Then  in  the  horde  there  would  happen  exactly  what  has 
happened  in  societies  about  whose  monogamous  character  there 
has  ndver  been  any  question,  viz.,  a  multiplication  of  marriage 
prohibitions.  Savage  man,  with  his  unoccupied  mental  life, 
would  here  have  his  task  set  him.  And  as  a  consequence 
primitive  Australian  society,  just  like  Christian  society  in 
medieval  Europe,  invented  a  long  list  of  these  prohibitions. 

The  next  step  in  the  formation  of  the  system,  as  we 
know  it  through  Spencer,  Gillen,  and  others,  is  clearly  dis- 
cernible. The  prohibitions  would  be  occasionally  disregarded : 
during  the  pairing  season  in  primitive  humanity,!^  infractions 
of  them  may  have  taken  place  on  a  liberal  scale.  The  infrac- 
tions, like  the  prohibitions  themselves,  would  in  course  of  time 
be  systematized  by  saturnalian  ordinances.  And  there  is  at 
least  no  more  reason  for  taking  the  Australian  saturnalia^"'  to 
indicate  primitive  promiscuity  or  absence  of  monogamic  tend- 
ency, than  for  taking  the  European  saturnalia  to  do  so.  In 
short,  Australian  group-marriage  has  not  strengthened  the  gen- 
eral case  for  primitive  promiscuity. 

It  is  clear  that  the  existence  of  the  horde  does  not  preclude 
the  formation  of  the  family.  But  at  least,  it  is  urged, i*^  the 
tendency  will  have  been  to  the  polygynic  rather  than  the  mono- 
gamic family.  This  view  has  been  set  forth  most  fully  by  the 
late  J.  J.  Atkinson,  who  conceived  of  the  prehuman  family  as 
polygynous  and  incestuous,  the  head  male  exercising  sexual 
rights  over  the  daughters  as  they  arrived  at  puberty,  and 
driving  out  the  sons.  He  imagines  a  band  of  exiled  young 
males  dwelling  in  the  primeval  forest  in  close  proximity  to  the 
family  whence  they  originated ;  but  deterred  from  re-entrance 
into  it,  and  living  in  enforced  celibacy  from  fear  of  the  in- 
cestuous father. 


1^  Gustav  Vleim  sees  an  additional  evidence  of  this  in  the  glands 
of  Bartholin  (Bloch,  The  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Times,  p.  16). 

15  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Northern  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  ch. 
xii. 

16  Bloch,  op.  cit.,  p.  196. 


394  THE    PRIMITIVE    FAMILY. 

This  would  seem  to  be  a  misconception  of  the  situation. 
It  will  be  allowed  that  sexual  union  would  be  sought  by  each 
member  of  the  family  as  required,  i.e.^  as  soon  as  each  was  ripe 
for  it.  When  the  young  male  felt  impelled  to  seek  the  female, 
he  would  resort  to  other  family  circles  than  his  own.  Within 
his  own  circle  his  sexual  desires  would  be  kept  in  check,  first, 
by  the  fear  of  the  head  male,  who  would  claim  as  his  own 
whatever  sexual  pleasure  was  to  be  had  in  his  immediate  en- 
vironment ;  and  secondly,  by  the  influence  stated  by  Wester- 
marck  on  a  positive  and  by  Havelock  Ellis  on  a  negative  theory, 
and  resulting  in  the  widespread  horror  of  incest. 

We  have  already  seen  that  this  latter  sedative  influence 
would  act  upon  the  head  male  himself.  The  fact  that  among 
some  primitive  peoples  at  the  present  day  a  father  will  not 
see  his  daughter  after  puberty — Atkinson  instances  the  Ved- 
dahs — does  not  prove  the  existence  of  a  prehistoric  habit  of 
incest.  This  avoidance  like  others  may  have  developed  from  a 
germ  of  sexual  indifference  or  of  sexual  repulsion. 

More  important,  as  against  the  supposition  that  the  head 
male  retained  his  own  daughters  for  his  sexual  requirements, 
is  the  consideration  that  the  pubescent  females  would  be  in 
demand  among  the  expelled  and  wandering  males  of  other 
families  than  their  own.  They  would  be  on  the  look  out  for, 
they  would  court,  these  advances  from  the  outside.  By  all 
the  primitive  methods  of  communication  and  attraction,  the 
sexual  requirements  of  the  pubescent  of  both  sexes  would 
become  known  to  possible  partners.  The  love  summons  was 
given  continually,  and  echoed  back,  in  the'  primeval  forest. 

Moreover,  if  the  head  male  of  a  given  family  was  jealous 
of  his  pubescent  sons,  one  may  ask — seeing  that  sexual 
jealousy  is  as  much  a  property  of  the  female  as  of  the  male — 
would  not  his  consort  similarly  seek  to  drive  out,  or  at  least 
encourage  the  exodus  of,  the  pubescent  females  from  the  same 
circle  ? 

We  seem  led  in  the  direction  of  the  conclusion  that  in  a 
given  family  environment  the  only  source  of  sexual  pleasure 


PRIMITIVE    COURTSHIP.  395 

which  the  head  male  would  normally  desire  to  keep,  or  suc- 
ceed in  keeping  if  he  did  desire  it,  was  the  embrace  of  the 
adult  female. 

Secondly,  and  for  the  reason  already  alluded  to,  the  in- 
herent moderation  of  the  primitive  sexual  instinct,  it  is  think- 
able that  the  prehuman  ancestor,  the  young  ape-man  meditating 
sexual  union  for  the  first  time,  would  have  little  temptation  to 
promiscuity,  to  making  experiments  on  a  number  of  females. 
Nor  would  he  be  capable  of  drawing  fine  distinctions,  such  as 
are  possible  to  civilized  man,  about  female  beauty ;  for  the 
power  of  distinguishing  types  of  beauty,  or  indeed  of  appre- 
hending the  beautiful  at  all,  remains  undeveloped  in  the  lower 
animals,  and  presumably  in  the  immediately  prehuman  or 
subhuman  ancestor.  His  sexual  choice  would  be  no  fastidious 
one;  and  the  first  partner  he  found  he  would  endeavor  to 
retain.  The  supply  of  -females  in  the  primeval  forest  would 
be  relatively  small ;  for  though  the  factors  in  sex  determina- 
tion have  not  yet  been  fully  discovered,  it  would  seem  pos- 
sible^*^^  that  the  hard  conditions  of  primitive  life  would  favor 
the  production  of  males  rather  than  that  of  females ;  and  the 
proportion  of  difiference  as  between  the  sexes  in  respect  of 
risks  to  life  would  not  be  so  great  as  in  more  developed  con- 
ditions. 

Fresh  sexual  unions  in  fact,  among  creatures  which  in 
the  course  of  their  evolution  had  been  tending  toward  an 
instinctive  monogamy,  necessarily  involved  marriage, — the  es- 
sence thereof,  not  yet  the  name.  And  having  achieved  their 
union,  the  two  partners  would  find  thereafter  but  few  causes 
of  separation;  for  the  great  majority  of  the  causes  of  conjugal 
disagreement  known  to  ourselves  would  be  out  of  the  question 
with  the  prehuman  ancestor ;  and  much  in  the  way  of  example 
among  monogamous  apes  and  animals,  in  the  necessities  of  the 
environment  in  the  difficulty  of  finding  partners,  above  all  in 


^^^  See  J.  V.  Simpson,  art.   Biology,  in   Hastings,  op.  cif.,  vol. 
ii,  pp.  631a. 


396  PRIMITIVE   MONOGAMY. 

recurrent  mutual  desire^"  and  in  the  growth  of  a  family,  which 
would  tend  to  make  the  union  permanent. 

The  natural  conditions,  therefore,  surrounding  sexual 
union  in  the  types  from  which  homo  sapiens,  man  spiritually 
capable  of  perceiving  abstract  ideas,  was  at  length  evolved, 
produced  a  monogamy  which  was  in  fact  adverse  to  promis- 
cuity, and  in  practice  tended  to  durability.  And  it  is  con- 
ceivable that  homo  sapiens  would  form  a  conviction,  or  estab- 
lish a  theory,  on  the  basis  of  what  he  had  inherited  as  an 
actuality.  It  would  be  borne  in  upon  the  soul  of  the  earliest 
truly  human  representative  that,  in  the  two  aspects  referred  to, 
monogamy  had  demands  upon  the  conscience.  And  this  theory, 
though  it  may  be  admitted  that  it  would  now  and  again  fail  in 
its  application,  refnained  thenceforward  as  the  lodestar  of 
humanity  in  the  sphere  of  sexual  morals.  The  ideal  Christian 
conception  of  monogamic  marriage  as  the  Divinely  instituted, 
indissoluble  relation  contains,  therefore,  thus  much  of  the 
actual,  that  its  basis  was  laid  down  contemporaneously  with 
the  appearance  on  this  planet  of  homo  sapiens,  and  is  not 
merely  the  mental  creation  of  subsequent  ages,  reflected  back 
into  the  primitive  past. 

It  follows  that  Christian  is  not  distinguished  from  non- 
Christian  monogamy  by  any  fundamental  ethical  principle. 
All  that  can  be  affirmed  is  that  the  sacramental  character  of 
marriage  comes  out  more  distinctly  in  Christianity  than  in 
marriage  outside  of  it.  Even  those  theologians  who  have  de- 
marcated Christian  from  non-Christian  marriage  the  most 
carefully,  have  regarded  the  latter  as  sacramental  in  a  large 
sense,  as  figuring  the  union  of  Christ  with  the  Church,  as 
conferring  some  kind  of  grace  (aliquod  genus  gratia) — even 
so  close  a  reasoner  as  Sanchez  is  driven  to  take  refuge  in  this 


^'''Rosenthal,  Der  Ursprung  der  Ehe  (Die  N.  G.,  Jahrg.  5,  pp. 
141),  has  well  described  the  working  of  this  factor;  and  I  see  no 
reason  why  it  should  not  have  been  operative  at  the  beginning  of 
human  social  evolution.     He  himself  postpones  its  action  somewhat. 


RELIGIOUS    MONOGAMY.  397 

vague  expression!'^ — and  as  suggesting  the  obligation  of  in- 
dissolubility, i''  Ideally,  then,  the  same  obligations  inhere  in  all 
monogamy.  They  press  with  greater  weight  upon  the  mar- 
ried Christian  because  to  him  the  ideal  has  been  luminously 
revealed,  while  others  are  only  dimly  conscious  of  it ;  but  it 
would  be  misleading  to  separate  non-Christian  monogamy 
from  all  relation  to  the  ideal. 

Since  then  the  ideal  of  indissoluble  monogamic  marriage 
stands  over  against  the  sex  life  of  humanity  in  general,  it 
cannot  be  said  either  that  the  formation  of  theories  of  mar- 
riage outside  of  Christianity  is  a  matter  of  no  ethical  interest, 
or  that  the  Christian  is  so  differentiated  from  the  non- 
Christian,  in  respect  of  matrimonial  obligation,  that  the  former 
ought  to  be  legally  compelled  to  realize  the  ideal  of  indis- 
solubility even  in  the  most  unfavorable  circumstances,  while 
the  latter  has  little  or  no  responsibility  in  regard  to  its  realiza- 
tion, even  where  the  circumstances  are  favorable. 

In  examining  the  association  of  sexuality  with  religious 
feeling,  Bloch  remarked  an  evolutional  fact  containing  an 
implication,  unperceived  by  himself,  which  is  worth  consider- 
ing in  the  present  connection.  Herodotus  says  that  among 
many  peoples  temples  are  visited  for  the  purpose  of  consum- 
mating sex  love  within  them.-'*  Sexual  intercourse  is  thus 
made  a  religious  act ;  we  have  already  seen  how  that  character 
is  emphasized  by  the  system  of  taboos;  and  since  it  may  be 
inferred,  and  indeed  is  hinted  by  Herodotus,  that  before 
temples  existed,  other  holy  places,  as  the  neighborhood  of 
springs  and  wells,  groves,  and  the  shade  of  sacred  trees,  were 
used  for  the  same  purpose,  the  custom  is  seen  to  be  rooted  in 
the  most  primitive  religious  feeling.  We  have  then,  here, 
the  possibility  of  ethical  revelations — whose  psychological 
medium  may  have  been  rational  convictions,  the  grasp  of  ideas, 


18  Op.  cit.,  1,  ii,  disp.  vii. 

19  Watkins,  Holy  Matrimony,  p.  439. 

20  Herodotus,  ii,  64;  Bloch,  Die  Prostitution,  Bd.  i,  p.  72. 


398  RELIGIOUS   MONOGAMY, 

or  perhaps  dreams  and  visions^i — on  the  subject  of  sexual 
responsibility  (which  Bloch  elsewhere  calls  a  categorical  im- 
perative in  the  sex  life  of  humanity),  and  the  obligatory 
character  of  the  enterprise  of  marriage. -- 

The  primal  age,  like  subsequent  ages,  may  have  had  its 
ethical  geniuses,  its  creative  souls,  its  prophets  of  morality 
"who  have  been  since  the  world  began,"  whose  spiritual  com- 


21  Speaking  of  the  evolution  of  the  religious  sentiment,  A.  H. 
Keane  says :  "The  absolute  starting  point,  behind  which  it  is  impossible 
to  get,  is  everywhere  the  dream."  (Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Ethics,  vol. 
V,  p.  526a.) 

-2  Bloch,  The  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time,  p.  220.  It  is  definitely 
established  that  clairvoyant,  veridical  or  prophetic  dreams  occur, 
and  these  might  be  utilized — whether  by  direct  or  indirect  operation  is 
indifferent  (see  Lang  and  Taylor,  Hastings,  op.  cit.,  p.  29a) — in  the 
divine  economy,  to  introduce  a  transcendental  and  categorical  element 
into  primitive  sexual  morality.  We  are  not,  however,  limited  to  the 
dream  as  the  sole  psychological  method  through  which  such  an  ele- 
ment might  have  been  mediated.  Various  abnormal  psychic  activities 
are  observable  in  races  of  low  development,  and  are  nowadays  scien- 
tifically studied  (cp.  Lombroso,  After  Death  What?  ch.  v;  Spencer 
and  Gillen,  Native  Tribes  of  Cent.  Australia,  ch.  xv,  ff.).  It  is  difficult 
to  posit  a  primitive  revelation  more  specifically  than  this.  G.  Schmidt 
and  A.  Lemonnyer  have  discussed  the  question,  in  connection  both  with 
theism,  with  which  we  are  not  now  immediately  concerned,  and  with 
marriage  (La  Revelation  Primitive  et  les  donnees  actuelles  de  la 
Science)  ;  but  much  of  what  Schmidt  advances  as  suggestive  of  the 
conservation  of  an  explicit  primitive  revelation  suits  equally  well  with 
the  view  that  the  divine  inspiration  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  is  exhibited 
in  the  handling  of  the  materials.  These  were  folk-tales,  for  the  most 
part  very  crude  and  naive.  The  coarse  story  of  Noah's  drunkenness, 
for  example,  is  probably,  as  Kuenen  (De  Boeken  des  Ouden  Verbonds, 
p.  245)  suggested,  a  folk-tale  which  the  compiler  of  J.  incorporated 
into  his  document  and  from  which  he  derived  the  chief  figure  in  his 
inspired  Flood  story.  There  are  similarly,  as  Gressmann  and  others 
have  shown,  vestiges  of  a  very  naive  and  vulgar  substratum  in  the 
Paradise  narrative.  None  the  less,  the  recitals  contained  ethical  doc- 
trines which  had  doubtless  in  rudimentary  form  been  long  current  in 
primitive  humanity.  These  the  composers  of  Genesis  were  inspired  to 
establish  and  develop  ;  and  it  is  probably  strictly  correct  to  speak  of 
their  origin  as  a  religious  revelation. 


RELIGIOUS    MONOGAMY.  399 

mission  it  has  been  to  guide  the  "vague  instinctive  pressure  of 
the  tribal  self'-^^  along  lines  whose  issue  they  were  enabled 
dimly  to  discern. 

It  was  only  later,  as  Bloch  admits,-"*  that  religious. prosti- 
tution developed  out  of  the  custom  of  consummating  love  in 
sacred  places.  Religious  prostitution  does  not  therefore  sup- 
port the  theory  of  primitive  promiscuity.  It  is  rather  a  piece 
of  misguided  religious  experimentation  in  the  sex  life,  an 
abortive  attempt  to-  search  farther  into  the  mind  of  Deity  in 
regard  to  it.-'^  The  particular  superstitious  factors  in  the 
growth  of  this  custom  are  passed  in  review  by  anthropolo- 
gists ;26  they  need  not  detain  us  here. 

Bloch  quotes  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  14:  12,  as  if  the  author 
had  found  a  certain  sanction  of  temple-prostitution  in  the  rela- 
tion of  sexuality  to  the  religious  consciousness.  In  reality  the 
passage  proves  just  the  contrary.  Idolatry  and  the  theory  of 
temple-prostitution  are  among  the  false  inferences  of  the 
religious  consciousness.  As  there  is  all  the  difference  between 
Gotzen  and  Gottheit,  so  the  false  and  the  true  apprehensions 
of  the  mind  of  God,  in  relation  to  sexuality-  or  in  any  other 
relation,  are  farther  apart  than  the  poles. 


23  J.  H.  Muirhead,  art.  Ethics,  in  Hastings,  op.  cit.,  vol.  v,  p.  420a. 
2-1  The  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time,  p.  105;  Die  Prostitution,  loc.  cit. 

25  As  such  it  was  strenuously  opposed  by  the  ethical  monotheism 
which  spiritual  leaders  strove  to  establish  in  ancient  Israel  (Bloch,  Die 
P.,  vol.  i,  pp.  80ff.). 

26  Pietschmann,  Gesch.  d.  Phonizier,  p.  229;  Ploss-Bartels,  Das 
Weib,  8,  Bd.  i,  chs.  xvii,  fif.,  xviii;  J.  G.  Frazer,  The  Magic  Art,  vol. 
i,  pp.  30f. 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE  B,  ON  THE  GENESIS 
NARRATIVE  OF  THE  FALL. 

Most  modern  Biblical  students  admit  that  the  form  of  the 
narrative  was  derived  not  from  history,  but  from  religious 
representations  and  traditions  (see  Driver,  Genesis,  pp.  51fif.)  ; 
but  we  have  to  go  farther  back  than  this,  and  to  investigate  the 
ideas  underlying  the  traditions  themselves.  The  particular 
interpretation  which  is  discussed  below  is  no  new  one.  With 
various  modifications,  it  is  that  of  a  number  of  ancient  writers^ 
(see  Tennant,  The  Fall  and  Original  Sin,  pp.  153ff.,  197)  ;  but 
without  modern  anthropology  it  remained  fanciful  and  ob- 
scure. Tennant,  referring  to  the  researches  of  Barton  and 
others,  is  disposed  to  recognize  the  existence  of  this  meaning  in 
the  Jahwistic  story;  but  considers  that  it  is  present  merely  in  a 
fossilized  condition,  and  that  the  Jahwistic  writer  "intended  to 
clear  his  narrative"  of  this  association  of  thought  {np.  cit.,  p. 
69).  Be  this  as  it  may,  in  the  hands  of  the  Jahwist  the  story 
obtains  a  fuller  content  and  wider  scope.  Nevertheless,  the 
primary  meaning  remains  in  the  story  as  a  germ,  a  point  of 
origin  of  perennial  human  interest ;  and  the  closer  examination 
of  this  point  of  origin  will  throw  considerable  light  on  Biblical 
religious  conceptions. 

With  reference,  then,  to  the  suggested  interpretation  of 
Genesis  iii,  alluded  to  in  the  text!  of  this  work,  it  must  be 
observed  that  the  command  to  the  first  pair  to  be  fruitful  and 
multiply  occurs  in  the  Hexateuchal  document  known  as  P. 
The  remaining  document  JE,  which  contains  the  story  of  the 
Fall,  has  no  such  Divine  sanction  of  sexual  relations  between 


1  Some  medieval  mystics,  e.g.,  interpreted  the  Fall  as  implying 
sexual  pleasure :  "Amor  carnalis  Adam  et  Evam  de  paradisi  deliciis 
ejecit."   (Idiotae  Contemplationes,  ch.  xxxiv.) 

(400) 


NATURE   SYMBOLISM.  401 

the  man  and  the  woman;  rather,  perhaps,  postulates  in  them 
an  original  absence  of  mutual  desire,  and,  therefore,  a  complete 
innocence.  The  expression  "knowing  good  and  evil,"  possibly 
refers  to  sexual  knowledge,  with  its  pleasure  and  its  respon- 
sibility.^  It  refers  at  any  rate  to  a  kind  of  knowledge  which  is 
normally  absent  in  young  children  (Deut.  1 :  39;  Isa.  7:  15,  16), 
and  in  old  men  (II  Sam.  19:35).  The  description  of  the 
plucking  of  the  fruit  suits  very  well  as  an  allegorical  represen- 
tation of  sexual  intercourse ;  indeed,  we  often  apply  this  sym- 
bolism half  unconsciously.  Moreover,  in  the  folk-lore  of  vari- 
ous races  a  connection  is  established  between  the  serpent  and 
the  sexual  functions.-^  Sometimes  it  is  considered  the  symbol 
of  sexual  desire;  and  the  Swahili  women  are  said  to  apply 
this  title  to  the  male  organ  of  generation.  Appropriately,  then, 
Eve  is  tempted  by  a  serpent  to  pluck  the  forbidden  fruit. 

The  triumphant  cry  of  Eve  on  the  birth  of  Cain :  "I  have 
gotten  a  man  in  spite  of  Jahweh,"  i.e.,  in  spite  of  His  condem- 
nation of  her  plucking  the  forbidden  fruit  of  sexual  inter- 
course, has  been  thought  to  strengthen  this  interpretation ;  but 
such  a  translation  of  Eve's  cry  requires  an  unusual  and  im- 
perfectly supported  rendering  of  'eth. 

There  is  some  probability  that  the  root  idea  of  the  mystic 
trees  in  the  midst  of  the  garden  is  to  be  found  in  nature  sym- 
bolism. The  two  trees  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  are  perhaps  a 
double  tree,  as  the  Third  Creation  Tablet  of  Babylonia  has 
been  thought  to  indicate ;  but  this  duality  will  have  been  a  later 
accretion  to  the  original  myth.  The  Tree  of  Life  itself  was 
probably  the  primary  concept;  and  the  interesting  question  is 
whether  it  is  meant  as  a  source  of  immortality  and  immunity 


2  Tennant  refers  to  Jastrow  as  understanding  the  expression  in 
this  way  (op.  cit.,  p.  41).  Cp.  G.  A.  Barton,  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel. 
Eth.,  vol.  ii,  p.  705a. 

3  See  the  evidence  collected  by  Havelock  Ellis,  Studies  in  the 
Psychology  of  Sex,  vol.  i,  pp.  306ff.  Cp.  J.  MacCulloch,  art.  Fall,  in 
Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Eth. ;  E.  Kiister,  Die  Schlange  in  der  griechischen 
Kunst  und  Religion,  pp.  149ff. 

26 


402  NATURE    SYMBOLISM. 

from  decay,  or  as  a  symbol  of  fecundity.  In  Genesis  3 :  21,  as 
in  the  twelfth  book  on  the  Epic  of  Gilgames,'*  it  appears  in  the 
former  guise,  like  the  Haoma  Tree  of  the  Iranians;  but  con- 
sidering the  probable  date  of  the  composition  of  the  version  of 
the  Paradise  narrative  which  appears  in  the  Book  of  Genesis,  we 
must  admit  the  possibility  that  later  conceptions  have  become 
interwoven  with  the  primary  idea.  As  several  critics  have 
noted,  it  is  unlikely  that  vv.  22-24  in  chapter  iii  are  original. 
The  Jahwist  may  have  admitted  these  verses  in  completion  of 
the  narrative,  either  not  perceiving,  or  being  indifferent  to  the 
fact  that  they  contained  a  notioni  out  of  harmony  with  the 
original  symbolism.  It  is  not  indeed  certain  that  J.  himself  was 
aware  of  the  real  interpretation  of  the  allegory  which  he  in- 
corporates in  his  book.  In  substance  it  was  composed  at  a 
date  long  anterior  to  his  own ;  and  its  meaning  may  have  be- 
come obscure  before  his  time.  Comparison  with  kindred  tradi- 
tions— such  comparison  as  none  but  modern  conditions  of 
knowledge  have  admitted  of — alone  renders  possible  the  recov- 
ery of  the  conceptions  earliest  embodied  in  the  narrative. 

The  symbolism  of  the  Tree  of  Life  is  more  likely 
originally  to  have  been  fecundity  than  immortality.  It  stands 
for  fecundity  in  the  ancient  Sumerian  hymn  quoted  by  Sayce  f^ 
and  in  the  Iranian  mythology  there  appears,  along  with  the 
Hoama  Tree  of  manifold  significance^  a  tree  called  Vigpata- 
okhma  (all-seed),  from  whose  seed  all  plant-germs  come  on  the 
earth.''' 


4  Sayce  in  Expository  Times,  vol.  vii,  p.  305. 

^  Expository  Times,  vol.  vii,  p.  267.  Although  the  translation  of 
the  Babylonian  text  in  which  occurs  mention  of  the  Vine  of  Eridu, 
given  by  Professor  Sayce  and  Mr.  Pinches,  may  not  absolutely  allow 
us  to  speak  of  that  vine  as  an  emblem  of  fertility,  yet  fertility  is  the 
leading  idea  associated  with  it ;  and  it  is  brought  into  connection  with 
the  couch  of  the  primeval  mother.  But  Mr.  R.  Campbell  Thompson 
regards  this  text  as  an  incantation,  and  the  Vine  as  a  medicinal  plant 
bestowing  life  in  cases  of  sickness   (Expository  Times,  vol.  xv,  p.  49). 

^  Modi,  art.  Haoma,  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Eth.,  vol.  vi,  p.  507a. 

"^  See  Dillmann,  Genesis,  E.  tr.,  vol.  i,  p.  109. 


THE    TWO    TREES.  403 

It  does  not  appear  when  the  Tree  of  the  Knowledge  of 
Good  and  Evil  was  added  to  the  prior  symbol ;  though  obvi- 
ously the  connection  must  have  been  made  in  a  society  which 
had  come  to  discern  something  of  the  relation  between  sexual 
intercourse  and  birth. 

The  net  result  of  our  inquiry  is  this :  The  two  trees,  or 
the  double  tree,  are  a  symbol  of  sexuality,  expressing  on  the 
one  hand  the  aspect  of  reproduction,  on  the  other  that  of  pleas- 
sure.  Man  and  woman,  in  their  ideal  state  of  innocence,  are 
depicted  as  abstaining  from  the  fruit  of  this  double  tree. 

Finally,  as  has  been  already  noted,  the  first  detrimental 
effect  of  the  eating  of  the  fruit  on  the  guilty  pair,  is  felt  in 
the  region  of  their  sexual  emotions. 

The  interpretation  in  question  is,  in  my  opinion,  estab- 
lished. Its  acceptance  necessitates  an  adjustment  of  ideas 
respecting  the  Biblical  doctrine  of  the  Fall.  In  view  of  what 
has  been  said  already  in  Chapter  III,  it  is  conceivable  enough 
that  primitive  man,  as  he  speculated  on  the  origin  of  moral 
evil  in  the  world,  should  have  seemed  to  find  it  in  the  sexual 
act,  which  had  long  acquired  a  certain  connotation  of  sinful- 
ness. As  a  historical  account  of  the  entrance  of  evil  into  the 
world,  the  narrative  in  Genesis  will  not  stand.  It  is  rather  an 
imperfect  speculation  on  the  part  of  primitive  man.  Yet  as  it 
appears  in  the  Hebrew  literature  it  is  differentiated  from  the 
kindred  mythical  and  allegorical  speculations  of  other  races  ;^ 
and  herein  consists  its  inspiration.  Although  it  deals  with 
but  one  department  of  human  activity,  the  sex  life, — yet  on 
the  basis  of  that  its  idealism  presents  a  true  and  profound 
estimate  of  the  principles  according  to  which  evil  operates  in 
humanity,  i.e.,  as  an  external  force  forming  no  original  part 
of   the  'Divine   purpose  in   creating  man,   a    force   which   the 


8  Other  races  besides  the  Semites  have  had  their  primitive  philoso- 
phers who,  by  allegorical  or  mythological  repriesentations,  have  at- 
tempted to  account  for  the  existence  of  evil  in  the  world.  See  an 
interesting  example  from  the  folk-lore  of  the  Diisuns  of  North  Borneo, 
in  The  Spectator  for  April  26,  1902. 


404  ORIGIN    OF   EVIL. 

human  will  may  resist  or  to  which  it  may  yield.  A  symbolic 
description  of  the  yielding  of  the  will  to  the  pressure  of  sex- 
ual desire,  here  idealized  as  an  external  tempter,  became  the 
readiest  and  best  method  of  illustrating  to  primitive  man — for 
illustration,  not  explanation,  is  the  purpose  of  the  Genesis  nar- 
rative— the  relation,  faintly  apprehended,  between  his  sinful 
self  and  God,  the  strenuous  conflict  between  the  higher  prin- 
ciple of  action  which  his  spiritual  capacity  enabled  him  to 
recognize,  and  a  lower  principle  the  power  of  which  he  con- 
tinually felt.  The  narrative,  like  other  primitive  speculations 
on  the  origin  of  evil,  fails  as  an  explanation ;  but,  unlike  them, 
succeeds  as  an  illustration. 

This,  however,  is  not  the  place  for  a  more  detailed  discus- 
sion of  this  subject,  to  which  I  hope  to  return  in  a  theological 
treatise  of  another  kind.^ 


9  On  the  interpretation  of  the  Story  of  the  Fall,  see  some  brief 
but  luminous  comments  in  the  above  sense  by  Principal  Garvie,  art. 
Christianity,  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Eth.,  vol.  iii,  p.  596b. 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE  C,  ON  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 
OF  OUR  LORD  JESUS  CHRIST. 

There  are  some  quite  definite  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
interpreting  the  above  dogma  as  implying  a  conception  which 
excluded  human  participation  on  the  masculine  side.  Let  us 
envisage  these.  First,  we  have  the  psychological  impossibility 
of  Mary's  question  to  the  angel  at  the  Annunciation.  She  was 
in  the  position  of  an  engaged  woman,  and  consequently,  as 
soon  as  the  birth  of  the  wonderful  Child  was  foretold,  would 
at  once  have  connected  that  event  with  her  forthcoming  mar- 
riage. ^  Such  a  detail  tells  against  the  claim  of  the  narrative  to 
be  historical. 

Secondly,  the  vestiges,  preserved  in  the  Gospels  them- 
selves, of  a  tradition  that  Jesus  was  in  fact  physically  the  son 
of  Joseph  and  Mary.  The  same  commentator  says:  "It  is 
remarkable  that  the  Davidic  descent  of  Joseph  is  emphasized, 
although  this  has  no  particular  interest  for  the  evangelist  in 
connection  with  the  miraculous  birth.  .  .  .  We  have 
here  the  first  indication  that  the  older  tradition  quite  freely 
regarded  Jesus  the  Son  of  David,  as  the  son  of  Joseph. "- 
The  facts  that  in  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  Mark  the 
Mother  of  Jesus  is  represented  as  trying  with  other  relatives 
to  restrain  His  missionary  activity;  that  He  placed  the  sym- 
bolic relation  of  a  mother  to  Himself  higher  in  the  scale  of 
values  than  the  actual  relation;  that  St.  Paul's  reference  to  the 
birth  of  Jesus  makes  against,  rather  than  for,  its  miraculous 
character  ;2^  and  that  the  Davidic  sonship  according  to  the  flesh 
figures  in  the  earliest  Christian  preaching,  are  significant  in  the 
same  sense. 

There  is  evidence  outside  of  the  New  Testament  that  the 
tradition  of  Joseph's  participation  in  the  birth  of  Jesus  long 
persisted  in  early  Christianity.    Justin's  allusion  to  this  fact  is 


1  Johannes  Weiss,  on  St.  Luke  i.  34,  in  Die  Schriften  des  N.  T. 
fiir  die  Gegenwart  erklart,  Bd.  i,  p.  416. 
^  Loc.  cit.;  cp.  eod.  op.,  p.  236m. 
2a  Bousset  on-Gal.  4:4  (ibid.). 

(405) 


406  THE    VIRGIN    BIRTH    OF    CHRIST. 

well  known;  and  the  conservation  of  that  tradition  was  also 
a  feature  of  Ebionism,  at  least  in  some  circles  of  it.-^ 

The  fact  that  the  alternative  tradition,  of  the  miraculous 
conception  independent  of  Joseph,  eventually  superseded  the 
other,  may  have  been  due,  not  to  considerations  of  historical 
probability,  but  partly  to  the  growing  ascetic  dislike  of  the  sex 
process,  and  partly  to-  the  inability  of  the  supporters  of  the 
physical  paternity  tradition  to  perceive  that  there  might  be,  in 
any  case,  elements  of  religious  truth  in  what  many  Christians 
were  saying  about  the  supernatural  conception.^  This  limita- 
tion of  view  impoverished  the  Christianity  which  asserted  the 
physical  paternity ;  but  I  hope  to  show  that  such  limitation  is 
not  the  inevitable  consequence  of  holding  that  tradition. 

We  pass  now  to  constructive  considerations,  which,  even 
if  they  do  not  give  us  back  the  physical  miracle  as  the  content, 
or  part  of  the  content,  of  the  dogma  in  question,  may  give  us 
a  content  at  least  as  wonderful,  at  least  as  pure,  at  least  as 
majestic  and  divine, — perhaps  even  more  so. 

First  we  have  the  initial  probability  that  the  conception 
narratives  may  be  legendary.^     There  are  parallels  to  them. 


3  Beveridge,  art.  Ebionism,  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Ethics,  vol. 
V.  To  collect  and  discuss  patristic  assertions  of  the  Virgin  Birth  is 
beyond  the  scope  of  this  article ;  but  we  may  remark  in  this  connection 
one  significant  fact.  The  earliest  Christian  reference  outside  of  the 
New  Testament  to  the  Virgin  Birth  is  Ignatius  ad  Eph.,  chs.  xviii,  xix. 
The  main  point  of  it,  however,  is  to  illustrate,  not  the  Divine  but  the 
human  side  of  the  Incarnation;  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  Christ- 
child  was  truly  human,  born  of  a  woman.  (Cp.  F.  C.  Burkitt,  art.  Gos- 
pels, Hastings,  E.  R.  E.,  vol.  vi,  p  345a.)  The  stress  therefore  is  on  the 
womanhood,  not  the  virginity.  So  far  as  the  tradition  of  Mary's 
physical  virginity  is  concerned,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  use  Ignatius 
proceeds  to  make  of  it  is  essentially  superstitious.  He  thinks  that  it 
was  needful  that  the  Son  of  God  should  come  into  the  world  this  way, 
in  order  to  elude  the  vigilance  of  the  devil. 

■1  So  also  thinks  Professor  Gardner  (The  Modern  Churchman, 
vol.  iv.  No.  2,  p.  87). 

5  cp.  Prof.  Sanday's  Reply  to  Bishop  Gore's  Challenge  to  Criti- 
cism, p.  27. 


LEGEND   AND   IDEALISM.  407 

more  or  less  close,  in  other  religions.  The  first  shock  of  such 
a  thought  soon  subsides,  and  from  a  destructive  it  becomes  a 
constructive  thought,  when  we  reflect  that  as  legend  has  with- 
out a  doubt  been  admitted  into  the  Old  Testament,  and  there 
made  one  of  the  vehicles  of  God's  inspiration,  it  may  conceiv- 
ably have  happened  thus  in  the  New.  Besides,  while  some 
legend  is  mere  invention,  so  far  separated  in  time  from  its 
subject  as  to  be,  historically  speaking,  valueless;  there  is  an- 
other kind  that  follows  more  closely  on  the  heels  of  events.*^ 
The  conception  narratives  are  of  this  latter  kind.  They  do  not 
therefore  deal  wholly  and  solely  with  ideas.  Facts  are  im- 
bedded in  them. 

With  this  reflection  goes  another,  that  the  element  of 
idealism  is  undoubtedly  present  in  some  of  the  Old  Testament 
narratives.  Analogously,  it  may  be  present  in  these  conception 
narratives. 

There  is  a  factual  nucleus  in  every  ideal  conception. 
When  men  idealize  women,  does  that  mean  that  they  attribute 
to  women  a  number  of  good  qualities  and  characters  which 
they  have  not  got  at  all?  No;  it  means  that  they  have  got, 
literally  and  actually,  the  things  men  attribute  to  them ;  only, 
men  are  taking  those  things  at  their  highest  known,  conceivable 
or  imaginable  expression,  not  at  their  average  or  less  than 
average  expression.  x\nd  as  to  permanence  and  value,  facts 
may  be  unmade ;  they  may  be  deprived  of  value,  they  may 
become  to  all  intents  as  if  they  had  never  been  at  all;  physical 
phenomena,  however  wonderful,  may  be  dissolved  into  their 
constituent  elements ;  but  ideas,  even  such  as  are  formed  in 
limited  individual  human  minds,  last  fresh  and  powerful  and 
directive  for  millenniums ;  and  if  they  are  thought  by  a  mind 
above  ours,  a  World-soul,  or  a  transcendent  God,  what  is  to 
prevent  them  enduring  for  ever  and  ever? 

There  are  at  present  two  contrasted  tendencies  in  the  theological 
consideration  of  the  subject  now  before  us.     On  the  one  hand  such 

<5  E.  Foresti,  II  Vangelo  secondo  Marco,  Coenobium,  ann.  viii, 
No.  2,  p.  2. 


408  FACT   AND   IDEA   IN    DOGMA. 

Anglican  divines,  as  Bishop  Weston,  of  Zanzibar,  in  a  sermon  published 
in  The  Church  Times,  and  such  Roman  Catholics  as  Fr.  L.  Murillo  in 
his  book,  El  progreso  en  la  revelacion  Christiana,  will  not  allow  that 
ideas  are  capable  of  forming  a  basis  for  Christian  doctrine.  On  the 
other  hand,  with  some  theologians,  as  a  writer  in  The  Church  Times 
(Feb.  27,  1914)  pointed  out,  "the  fact  counts  for  little  or  nothing,  and 
may  be  disbelieved,  but  the  idea  behind  the  fact  is  all-important." 

The  present  treatment  of  the  subject  concedes  objective  value  both 
to  fact  and  to  idea  as  basic  elements  of  dogma. 

And  now,  with  this  in  our  minds,  we  leave  the  Gospel  nar- 
ratives for  a  few  moments,  and  look  at  what  is,  beyond  ques- 
tion, a  piece  of  idealism,  the  figure  of  the  Woman  clothed  with 
the  Sun,  in  the  12th  chapter  of  the  Apocalypse  of  St.  John. 
Modern  exegesis,  of  which  the  commentaries  of  Bousset  and  J. 
Weiss  on  the  Apocalypse  are  conspicuous  examples  in  the 
width  of  their  learning  and  the  ripeness  of  their  judgment, 
regards  this  figure  as  the  idealized  Israel,  at  once  a  church  and 
a  nation.  That  is  the  nucleus  of  the  conception,  which  has  been 
amplified  by  features  derived  from;  remoter  sources  than  the 
Scriptures  of  Israel.  But  these  latter  afford  the  clue  which 
I  am  now  following  up.  In  the  O.  T.  prophets  we  see  Israel 
personified  as  a  woman.  Her  title  is  the  Virgin  of  Israel,  or 
something  equivalent.  If  it  be  objected  that  that  title  of  itself 
disconnects  her  with  the  Sun-clad  W^oman,  seeing  that  the  lat- 
ter is  a  mother,  we  are  able  at  once  to  reply  that  though  in 
several  of  the  relevant  passages  a  word  is  used  (bethulah), 
which  denotes  physical  virginity,  yet  this  latter  idea  is  not 
consistently  developed  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  The  vir- 
ginity of  the  Virgin  of  Israel  or  Virgin  Daughter  of  Zion  does 
not  exclude  maternity.  In  Lam.  2 :  19,  her  young  children  faint 
for  hunger  at  the  top  of  every  street.  Nay,  it  would  seem  that 
she  can  be  pictured  as  a  bride.  The  adorning  of  the  Virgin 
of  Israel  with  tabrets  (tup pint)  is  parallel  to  the  adorning  of 
a  bride  with  kelimf'^  The  latter  is  a  general  expression, 
"things."     It  is  used  of  musical  instruments;  and  may  here 


6"  Jer.  31 :  4,  Isa.  61 :  10. 


THE   VIRGIN    OF   ISRAEL,  409 

quite  well  mean  tabrets,  instead  of,  as  frequently  translated, 
jewels. 

Further,  in  Isa.  47,  the  Virgin  daughter  of  Babylon  or 
daughter  of  the  Chaldaeans — von  Orelli  observes  that  the 
terms  are  synonymous — can  be  spoken  of  in  the  same  breath 
as  a  bereaved  mother  and  a  widow." 

Now,  we  know  that  this  idealized  figure,  the  Virgin  of 
Israel,  had  existed  for  long  centuries  before  the  birth  of  the 
Mother  of  Jesus.  It  had  preceded  her  in  its  essential  form 
and  features,  even  if  its  final  Scriptural  presentation,  syncre- 
tistically  amplified  and  draped,  in  the  Johannine  Apocalypse, 
occurred  during  or  soon  after  her  Hfetime.^  It  is  therefore 
more  correct  to  say  that  this  apocalyptic  creation  influenced 
the  historic  portraiture  of  Mary,  than  that  the  historic  Mary 
— as  some,  especially  Roman  Catholic  exegetes,  have  main- 
tained— suggested  it.  It  is,  however,  possible,  as  we  shall  see, 
that  the  historic  Mary  reacted  upon  it. 

Thus,  preparation  had  been  made  for  the  idealization  of 
the  actual  Mary,  Mother  of  Jesus ;  for  her  idealization  in  the 
legendary  part  of  the  Gospel  narrative,  and  for  her  idealiza- 
tion in  later  Christian  devotion. 

So  then  we  may  ascend  a  farther  step  in  constructive 
criticism.  The  conception  of  Jesus  by  the  Holy  Ghost  of  the 
Virgin  Mary  is  real  and  wonderful,  even  if  it  is  not  primarily 
related  to  the  physical  process  by  which  the  Son  of  God  took 
human  flesh. 

Relations  between  spiritual  beings,  relations  of  feeling, 
thought  and  purpose,  are  infinitely  higher  in  the  scale  of  values 
than  any  physical  relations;  these  latter,  in  fact,  rise  in  value 


'''The  same  holds  good  in  reference  to  other  ancient  languages 
and  societies  (Frazer,  The  Golden  Bough,  ed.  3,  vol.  i,  p.  36).  In  Assyro- 
Babylonian  religion,  the  virgin,  i.e.,  unmarried,  goddesses,  were  greater 
figures  than  the  wives  of  the  gods,  and  were  also  mothers.  (M.  Jas- 
trow,  Die  Religion  Bab.  und  Assyr.,  vol.  i,  kap.  5.) 

8  The  final  redaction  of  the  Johannine  Apocalypse  falls  probably 
in  the  reign  of  Domitian   (Moffat,  Introd.  Lit.  N.  T.). 


410  THE    SPIRITUAL   CONCEPTION. 

just  in  proportion  as  they  are  transformed  into  the  former. 
Hence  it  is  obvious  that  what  we  must  have  primary  regard  to, 
in  interpreting  the  dogma  of  the  Conception  of  Jesus  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  is  the  spiritual  relation  be- 
tween the  two  latter.  As  a  general  principle,  in  order  to  meet 
and  mingle  with  the  Divine  Spirit,  the  human  spirit  must  be 
at  its  own  best.  It  is  always  at  the  end  of  some  spiritual  ten- 
sion, of  penitence,  of  faith,  of  trust,  of  adoration,  or  whatever 
it  may  be,  that  the  human  spirit  comes  into  completest,  most 
conscious  touch  and  union  with  the  Divine  Spirit. 

I  suggest,  then,  that  the  primary  matter  for  us,  is  to  hold 
the  truth  that  Jesus  was  the  spiritual  child  of  the  Divine  Spirit 
and  the  spirit  of  woman.  Idea  and  fact  are  both  present  in 
this  truth.  On  the  one  hand,  Mary  is  idealized.  Her  figure, 
even  as  it  appears  in  the  conception  narratives,  summing  up 
into  itself  through  her  connection  with  the  genealogies  the 
whole  history  of  Israel,  is  cognate  with  the  O.  T.  conception  of 
the  Virgin  of  Israel.  All  the  women  of  Israel  are  repre- 
sented in  her ;  and  Jesus  is  the  Child  of  all  that  is  best  in  them, 
all  that  is  found  worthy  of  the  impregnating  touch  of  Divinity. 
Thus,  for  one  thing,  in  the  realm  of  ideas,  of  eternal  truth,  the 
redemptive  process  is  safeguarded  from  becoming  a  prepon- 
derantly masculine  concern.  Woman  is  given  a  share  in  the 
active  side  of  it ;  a  share  which  we  shall  presently  estimate  in 
connection  with  Mary;  and  which,  if  it  does  not  justify,  will 
at  any  rate  explain  and  excuse,  even  the  extravagant  religious 
honor  which  has  since  been  accorded  to  her. 

And  on  the  other  hand  Mary  is  historical.  She  did  live, 
and  did  undergo  a  unique  experience;  which,  if  we  wish  duly 
to  estimate,  we  must  think  of — the  warning  to  do  so  is  im- 
plicitly given  in  the  Gospel  itself^ — as  before  all  else,  a  spirit- 
ual experience.  The  processes,  in  fact,  that  went  forward  in 
Mary's  body  are  in  any  case  of  far  less  importance  to  the 
dogma,  than  those  occurring  in  her  soul. 


9  St.  Matthew  i,  20. 


THE    BIRTH    PROCESS.  411 

The  emphasis  laid  by  Mrs.  Riindle  Charles  in  her  sym- 
pathetic and  beautiful  book,  Ecce  Ancilla  Domini,  on  the  eth- 
ical aspect  of  Mary's  acceptance  of  the  Motherhood,  is  of  itself 
an  encouragement  to  interpret  the  Divine-human  conception 
along  the  line  we  are  developing  in  these  pages. 

The  processes  of  birth  are  now  known  up  to  a  very  remote 
point.  Special  scientific  disciplines  have  come  into  being  en- 
abling us  to  review  every  stage  of  the  development  that  lies 
within  the  range  of  sense  perception,  as  far  back  as  the 
chemical  combinations  which  initiate  it.  But  beyond  that  we 
cannot  go.  And  when  we  take  a  larger  view  of  the  world- 
order,  we  become  impressed  with  the  reasonableness  and 
probability  of  the  assumption  that  behind  these  cognizable 
phenomena  operates  a  spiritual  factor.  As  William  James  fol- 
lowed up  the  thought  process  to  its  cognizable  beginnings,  and 
then  found  his  data  indicating  the  probable  existence  of  a  large 
background  of  spiritual  activity,  "a  sort  of  anima  mundi  think- 
ing in  all  of  us"  ;i**  so  it  is  with  the  birth  process.  The 
chemical  combinations  within  the  germ-plasma  are  mechanical. 
Behind  their  action  lies  the  kind  of  action  which  we  vaguely 
designate  spiritual,  and  which  may,  as  the  late  Frederic  Myers 
maintained,  have  many  aspects,  from  automatism  up  to  an  in- 
comprehensible degree  of  '  conscious  self-sacrifice. ^  Con- 
ception has  in  fact  a  spiritual  origin.  The  ancients,  who  had 
not  attained  to  a  scientific  presentation  of  this  truth,  and  such 
moderns  as  on  religious  grounds  dislike  such  a  presentation, 
have  postulated  special  creative  Divine  acts,!^  or  their  equiva- 
lent, to  account  for  it.^-^     Holding  then  the  biological  facts  in 


1'*  W.  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  i,  p.  346. 

11  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  Human  Personality,  vol.  ii,  pp.  274f. 

1-  This  is  the  Scholastic  doctrine  accepted  by  modern  Romanism 
(Vonier,  The  Human  Soul,  p.  65). 

13  The  Assyrians  and  Ba])ylonians  thought  of  every  birth  as  an 
act  of  God.  (Prince,  art.  God,  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Eth.,  vol.  vi. 
p.  2S2a).  The  Jews  of  New  Testament  times  believed  in  the  existence 
of  an  angel  of  conception   (SufFrin,  eod.  o[>.,  p.  297a). 


412  MARY'S    SACRIFICE. 

juxtaposition  to  the  theological  fact  in  the  incarnative  process, 
we  see  that  the  spiritual  aspect  of  the  conception  of  Jesus  by 
Mary  remains  unaltered  even  though  the  physical  aspect  of 
that  conception  was  normal.  The  being  who  did  as  a  matter 
of  fact  incarnate  Himself  by  means  of  the  protoplasmic  changes 
initiated  in  the  wife  of  Joseph,  has  to^  be  thought  of  in  two 
aspects  before  that  event.  He  was  first  of  all  pre-existent  in 
His  wholeness,  outside  of  and  independently  of  Mary.  Next, 
He  became  existent  in  Mary,  antecedently  to  and  conditioning 
the  biological  conception,  as  a  potential  Divine-human  being, 
the  product  of  the  union  of  the  Divine  Spirit  with  the  spirit 
of  Mary. 

Childbirth  is  normally  a  matter  in  which,  throughout  the 
whole  process  from  first  to  last,  elements  of  joy  and  pain 
alternate.  Medical  science  recognizes  in  pregnancy  a  special 
liability  to  depression,  which  balances  its  hopes. 

But  into  the  sacred  inwardness  of  Mary\s  soul  we  have  a 
farther  glimpse  than  might  have  been  afforded  by  such  an 
expectation.  The  first  fact  of  religious  interest  that  emerges 
from  this  unique  example  of  the  productive  union  of  the 
Divine  and  the  human  spirits  is  the  completeness  and  majesty 
of  the  latter's  self-surrender.  This  is  briefly  and  dramatically 
indicated  in  v.  38  of  the  Lucan  nai"rative ;  but  the  self-sacrifice 
which  is  implied  was  for  the  historic  Mary  real  and  awful 
fact.  Christian  divines,  and  still  more  Christian  worshippers, 
in  their  just  anxiety  to  defend  Mary's  purity  from  even  the 
shadow  of  a  cloud,  accentuate  the  notion  of  her  having 
conserved  her  virginity.  It  is  truer  to  say — for  this  is  what 
the  conception  narratives  imply — that  she  laid  down  her  vir- 
ginity before  God  and  the  world,  and  received  it  back  indeed, 
but  not  before  it  had  passed  through  those  dread  altar-fires  of 
sacrifice  on  which  humanity  lays  its  highest  values. 

What  does  this  mean?  it  is  asked.  It  means  that  a  sense 
of  manifold  impending  danger  filled  Mary's  soul  as  that 
strange  conviction  that  she  was  to  bear  a  Divine  Child  laid 
hold   upon   her.      How   that   conviction    came,    what   was   the 


PERSECUTION    OF    MARY.  413 

psychical  event  presented  as  an  angelic  vision,  it  may  be  im- 
possible to  discover.  It  is  enough  that  the  conception  nar- 
ratives indicate  shame  and  danger  as  threatening  Mary.  If  the 
factual  germ  of  the  narratives  is  that  the  Babe  was  to  be 
physically  the  son  of  herself  and  her  husband,  but  spiritually 
the  offspring  of  God's  Spirit  and  her  own,  then  the  particular 
form  of  shame  and  danger  alluded  to  in  the  Gospels,  her  re- 
pudiation and  worse,  of  course  disappears  as  fact.  It  remains, 
however,  as  the  symbol  of  Mary's  actual  suffering;  for  that 
such  suffering  occurred  is  certain.  We  must  think  of  coming 
events  as  foreshortened  in  her  soul's  vision,  and  the  elements 
of  sorrow  they  contained  as  concentrated  into  an  experience 
of  anticipatory  agony.  There  were  griefs  that  would  pierce 
her  directly,  not  only  such  as  were  derived  from  the  sorrows 
of  her  Son.  Although  to  our  view  Mary  stands  in  the  purest 
light,  yet  probably  no  woman  that  ever  lived  has  been  more 
assailed  with  reproach  and  insult  than  she.  The  same  great 
Biblical  student  to  whom  I  have  already  referred,  remarking 
on  the  fact  that  women,  and  those  too  whose  sex  lives  had 
gone  wrong,  have  been  made  specially  prominent  in  the  Mat- 
thsean  genealogy,  says  that  the  reason  can  only  be  that  similar 
reproaches  were  being  made  against  the  Mother  of  Jesus.  In- 
deed, an  allusion  in  Tertullian,  interpreted  by  a  passage  in  a 
pagan  satirist,  hints  that  there  was  no  limit  to  the  brutality 
with  which  Mary's  name  was  bandied  about.  And  no  doubt  all 
this  began  in  crude  actuality  in  her  lifetime.  Nothing  ap- 
proaching to  historical  information  about  her  is  forthcoming 
after  the  scene  in  the  upper  chamber  at  Jerusalem;  but  it  is 
reasonable  to  conjecture  that  when  persecution  arose,  St. 
John's  home  could  not  have  been  a  very  safe  asylum  for  a  per- 
sonage so  conspicuous  in  the  Christian  movement  as  she 
necessarily  was.  If  it  is  correct  to  see  in  the  historic  Mary, 
not  indeed  the  original,  but  one  of  the  constituent  elements  of 
the  apocalyptic  Woman  clothed  with  the  Sun,i^  ^\'^Q  inference 

14  As  Bisping  does.     See  Kiibel  and  Zockler's  commentary  on  the 
Revelation  of  St.  John,  12:2. 


414  THEOLOGICAL   VALUE    OF   THE    BIRTH-STORY. 

that  she  was  pursued  and  persecuted  becomes  irresistible. 
Strangely  enough,  Roman  Mariology  seems  to  have  ignored 
this  great  "Sorrow  of  Mary."!"*^ 

If,  then,  the  undeniably  weighty  considerations  included 
among  those  enumerated  above,  and  the  cumulative  force  of 
them  all,  oblige  us  toi  part  with  the  conception  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  a  miraculous  (=  quasi-physical)  sense,  we  still  retain 
it  on  the  spiritual  plane.  On  this  theory,  first,  the  historical 
Mary  had  a  spiritual  experience  which  makes  her  supreme 
among  women.  Secondly,  the  idealized  Mary, — for  it  is  that 
Mary  who  comes  before  us  in  the  concej)tion  narratives,  the 
Virgin  of  Nazareth  combined  with  the  "Virgin  of  Israel" — is 
the  possessor  of  that  actual  experience  with  its  ethical  values, 
and  she  is  also  the  possessor  of  the  idealistic  amplification  of 
the  narrative.  This,  as  we  have  seen  reason  to  think,  may  well 
itself  convey  religious  and  theological  truth.  I  shall  now 
attempt  to  unfold  this. 

There  existed,  first,  an  initial  probability  that  the  concep- 
tion narratives  would  have  kept  clear  of  the  sex  process  alto- 
gether. The  notion  that  the  activities  of  sex  are  inherently 
sinful  is  still  widespread  in  humanity;  Westermarck,  Havelock 
Ellis,  Bloch,  and  many  other  psychologists  and  sociologists 
illustrate  it  with  a  wealth  of  information ;  and  in  antiquity  it 
was  much  more  dominant  than  now.  Not  only  sex  relations 
even  in  marriage,  but  birth  itself,  were  counted  unclean ;  and 
that  too,  not  as  now  by  backward  peoples,^"'  but  by  those  in 
the  van  of  human  progress. i''  And  since  even  this  part  of  the 
sex  process  was  supposed  to  offend  the  eyes  of  Deity,  it  is 
wonderful  that  the  evangelist  did  not  yield  to  the  unconscious 
pressure  of  surrounding  opinion,  and  put  the  conception  nar- 
ratives into  a  fundamentally  different  form.     He  might  have 


i'*^  See  Campana,  Maria  nel  Dogma  CattoHco  (Fr.  tr.),  torn,  lii, 
ch.  ix. 

!•"'  E.  S.  Hartland,  art.  Birth,  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Eth.,  ii, 
p.  642. 

1^  The  prohibition  by  the  Athenians  of  accouchements  in  Delos 
is  typical  (Thuc,  iii,  104). 


T.iEOLOG.CAL   VALUE    OF   THE    BIRTH-STORY.  415 

made  the  Divine  Child  spring  from  Mary's  head,  or  from  her 
bosom ;  there  was  precedent  in  the  mythologies  for  such  a 
presentation  of  the  matter.^''' 

But  no;  just  here  enters  the  illuminating  controlling  fac- 
tor of  the  higher  inspiration.  The  writer  is  impelled  to  accept 
the  sex  process  so  far  as  the  Mother  is  concerned ;  and  the 
Christian  faith  of  a  later  age  was|  enabled  to  express  itself  in 
the  dignified  and  immeasurably  significant  words  "When  Thou 
tookest  upon  Thee  to  deliver  man,  Thou  didst  not  abhor  the 
Virgin's  Womb."  If  there  is  one  result  or  conclusion  that  we 
may  pick  out  from  the  science  of  sex  which  has  developed  so 
rapidly  of  recent  years,  as  thoroughly  established  and  per- 
manently accepted,  it  is  that  the  old  notion  of  the  sinfulness 
of  the  sex  process,  in  sc,  is  superstitious,  not  religious ;  and 
must  be  discarded  before  ethical  religion  can  assert  its  full 
sway  over  humanity's  sex  life.^^  And,  most  assuredly,  the 
conception  narratives,  by  retaining  the  sex  process  to  the  im- 
portant extent  of  normal  pregnancy  and  parturition,  fore- 
shadowed and  hallowed  this  development  of  ethical  thought. 
They  make  it  clear  that  the  Spirit  of  God  and  the  spirit  of 

1"  The  birth  of  Minerva  illustrates  this.  In  Indian  and  Chinese 
mythologies  we  read  of  divine  or  semidivine  infants  being  born  from 
the  bosom  or  side  of  their  mothers  (P.  Saintyves,  Les  Vierges  Meres 
et  les  Naissances  Miraculeuses,  pp.  192flf.).  I  am  not  suggesting  that 
the  evangelist  would  have  been  directly  influenced  by  any  of  these 
mythologies;  only  they  indicate  that  the  idea  of  honoring  virginity  "par 
la  sortie  meme  de  I'enfant,"  was  entertained  from  the  far  East  to  the 
West. 

18  The  a  priori  Catholic  reasons  why  the  physical  conception  of 
Jesus  Christ  should  have  been  effected  without  masculine  co-operation 
are  stated  by  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  Summa  Theol.,  pars  iii,  qu.  xxviii, 
art.  i,  respondeo,  etc.  So  far  as  they  are  determined,  and  they  are 
in  fact  very  largely  determined,  by  the  partly  instinctive,  partly  ascetic 
fear  of  the  sex  process  per  se, — the  various  aspects  of  the  incarnative 
process,  even  (as  in  Greek  paganism")  parturition,  are  viewed  in  the 
light  of  this  idea,  and  the  subsequent  life  of  Mary  is  construed  accord- 
ing to  it, — they  belong  to  an  anthropomorphic  way  of  thinking  about 
God,  and  have  consequently  no  permanent  value.  So  far  as  they 
safeguard  the  recognition  of  the  Divine  side  of  the  Incarnation,  they 
fit  in  equally  well  with  the  theory  developed  in  these  pages. 


416  THEOLOGICAL   VALUE    OF   THE   BIRTH-STORY. 

woman,  in  conscious  union,  refuse  to  justify  superstitious  and 
paralyzing  fears,  refuse  to  allow  that  the  sex  process  is  irre- 
deemable ;i^  they  render  possible  and  imperative  the  working 
out  of  the  ethical  problems  directly  concerned  with  sex.  That 
such  is  the  implication — one  of  the  first  importance  for  moral 
theology — becomes  yet  clearer  and  more  certain,  when  we  con- 
sider the  conception  narratives  in  their  wider  theological 
bearings. 

When  it  was  said  just  now  that  Jesus  was  the  spiritual 
child  of  the  Divine  Spirit  and  the  spirit  of  Mary,  we  were  on 
the  verge  of  sexual  metaphors.  The  union  of  the  two  spiritual 
essences  might  have  been  illustrated  by  reference  to  the  com- 
mingling of  two  portions  of  protoplasm.  Let  us  now  see  how 
far  in  this  direction  the  conception  narratives  warrant  us  in 
going,  and  what  theological  inferences  the  representation 
seems  to  justify. 

Loisy  observes  :20  "Les  termes  employes  par  Gabriel  pour 
signifier  I'operation  de  I'Esprit  divin  sont  chastes  et  discrets, 
mais  ils  n'en  figurent  pas  moins  de  fagon  tres  nette  la  part  du 
mari  dans  I'acte  physique  de  la  generation."  This  comment  is 
faulty ;  and  even  more  misleading  is  Franz  Delitzsch's  transla- 
tion (in  his  Hebrew  New  Testament)  of  eirekevaeTaL  in  St. 
Luke,  i,  35,  by  tabho  ' alaik;  for  bo  'al  isi  the  equivalent  of 
da-epx^a-datj  not  of  iirepx^o-QaL.  Johannes  Weiss,  however,  puts 
us  on  the  right  track.  He  says :  "Let  us  remember  that  we 
are  dealing  with  the  idealized  conception  narrative,  that  the 
method  of  the  conception  is  tenderly  indicated.  All  corporeal 
images  are  avoided." 

Such  is  the  case,  in  fact,  when  we  examine  the  descrip- 
tion of  the^Holy  Spirit's  action,  as  given  in  the  above-quoted 
verse.  He  passes  over  (^liripxta-dai  =  "  abhar)  Mary  like  a 
wind.     He  overshadows    (cTrio-Kia^etv)  her  like  a  cloud.     The 


19  This  opinion  has  been  held  even  under  the  aegis  of  Christianity. 
Even  marriage  could  not,  it  was  believed,  sanctify  sex  relations.  {Cp. 
G.  Cross,  art.  Celibacy,  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Eth.,  vol.  iii,  p.  273b.) 

-'•  Evangiles  Synoptiques,  vol.  i,  p.  291. 


THEOLOGICAL   VALUE    OF   THE    BIRTH-STORY.  417 

cloud  and  the  wind  together  are  moist  fertihzing  agencies. 
They  cause  Mary  to  conceive. 

Now  let  us  view  this  extraordinarily  tender  and  reverent 
image  in  connection  with  biological  fact.  If  there  remains  in 
our  minds  any  feeling  that  the  avoidance  of  corporeal  images 
is  due  to  dislike  or  dread,  on  the  part  of  the  Divine  Being,  of 
the  sex  process  which  presumably  formed  part  of  His  creative 
counsels,  what  has  been  said  already  will  reassure  us  on  that 
point.  We  shall  expect  to  find,  not  that  thej  sex  process  is 
eliminated,  pushed  out,  discredited  in  the  sweep  of  the  in- 
spirational force  which  made  these  conception  narratives  what 
they  are ;  but  rather  that  it  has  been  held  to  as  part  of  some 
large  scheme  in  the  mind  of  God ;  and  by  putting  together  the 
revealed  Gospel  message  and  scientifically  ascertained  fact,  we 
may  hope  to  grasp  the  outline  of  this  scheme. 

Biology  tells  us  of  presexual  reproductive  processes,  when 
changes  similar  to  those  brought  about  by  the  spermatozoon's 
forcible  irruption  into  the  ovum  are  initiated  by  special  condi- 
tions in  the  environment.  This  very  primitive  and  simple 
fructification  of  protoplasm  can  in  fact  be  imitated  artificially. 
The  evolution  of  the  reproductive  process  is  described  in  clear 
popular  language  by  Dr.  Ernst  Teichmann.-'i 

Fructification — conception — by  moist  surrounding  condi- 
tions, which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  figure  employed,  accord- 
ing to  the  correct  exegesis,  in  the  conception  narrative  of  St. 
Luke,  reminds  one  irresistibly  of  that  presexual  primal  repro- 
ductive process  which  Dr.  Teichmann  describes  as  set  up  by 
such  conditions. 

As  soon  as  we  have  perceived  that  the  conception  narra- 
tives are  idealistic — observe,  I  do  not  say- a  tissue  of  "mere," 
i.e.,  unrealized  ideas,  but  idealistic — then  we  can  at  once  grasp 
the  theological  meaning  of  the  spiritual  message  conveyed  in 
this  at  first  sight  unpromising  literary  vehicle.  It  is  not  that 
the   sex  process  is  thrown  out  of   God's  calculations,   so  to 

21  Fortpflanzung  unci  Zeugung  (Stuttgart);  cp.  art.  Biology,  in 
Hastings,  Encyc.   Rel.  Eth.,  vol.  ii. 


418  THE   GLORY   OF   MARY. 

speak,  in  His  redemptive  purpose.  It  has  a  far  larger  content 
than  that,  and  an  aUogether  different  impHcation.  Nothing 
less  than  this,  as  I  conceive  it.  All  life,  prehuman  as  well  as 
human,  is  encircled  in  the  vast  szwep  of  God's  redeeming  love 
through  Jesus  Christ.  Mary  stands  before  us  as  the  type  of  all 
maternity,  of  all  reproduction.  Her  conception  of  Jesus  by 
Divine  agency  casts  its  vasty  import  and  itsi  royal  sway  back 
across  all  the  stages  of  evolved  life  to  its  primitive  beginning; 
and  assures  us  that  God's  love — nay,  what  is  so  much  more 
significant  to  the  theologian,  His  redeeming  love — is  extended 
to  it  all.  Our  world-outlook  becomes  universalistic.  Not  with- 
out just  cause  is  Mary  called,  in  an  ancient  liturgy,  "the  new 
loom. "22  She  is  the  instrument  which  the  Spirit-power  em- 
ployed to  weave  the  spoiled  web  of  life  into  a  new  pattern.  In 
truth,  one  of  the  factors  that  goes  to  produce  the  idealized 
Mary  is  just  this  apocalyptic  conception  of  newness,  one  of 
the  profoundest  conceptions  which  the  scheme  of  revelation 
contains. 23 

Is  not  this  crowning  reflection  enough  in  itself  to  convince 
us  that  modern  exegesis  does  not  and  can  not  empty  of  con- 
tent the  dogma  that  Jesus  Christ  was  conceived  by  the  Holy 
Ghost  of  the  Virgin  Mary ;  even  if  the  basis  of  that  dogma  lies 
as  much  in  the  spiritual  and  ideal  as  in  the  physical  and 
actual  sphere? 

And  Mary?  Has  the  Mystic  Rose  faded,  the  Golden 
Censer  become  base,  in  this  dry  light  of  modern  Biblical 
science?  Have  we  in  any  way  dimmed  the  unique  luster  that 
surrounds  her  name?  Has  not  our  interpretation  laid  at  her 
feet  a  greater  tribute  of  honor  than  all  the  platitudes  about 
gentleness  and  all  the  tinsel  accretions  from  paganism  which 
devotees  have  brought  to  her  through  the  centuries?  We  have 
been  permitted  to  see  her  standing  in  virgin  purity  amid  the 


22  Brightman,  Eastern  Liturgies,  p.  206. 

23  R.  H.  Charles,  Between  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  p.  59;  id. 
on  Rev.  xx-xxii,  in  The  Expository  Times,  vol.  xxvi,  No.  2,  and  the 
discussion  in  foil,  nos. 


THE    GLORY    OF    MARY.  419 

altar-fires  of  self-sacrifice;  we  have  bowed  in  awe  before  the 
inmost  shrine  of  her  sacred  and  incommunicable  sorrows ;  we 
have  followed  her  figure  as  it  rose  into  the  high  eternal  heaven 
of  Divine  ideas.  There  is  hardly  any  limit  to  the  gratitude  and 
the  reverence  that  we  are  called  on  to  pay  her;  and  the  best 
way  of  giving  expression  to  these  is  to  share  her  consciousness 
of  a  higher  world  and  her  faith  in  a  spiritual  purpose  proceed- 
ing from  it;  to  imitate  in  our  several  ways  and  vocations  her 
receptiveness  of  the  Spirit  of  God;  to  strive  after  the  ideals 
of  self-sacrifice  which  she  so  fully  and  gloriously  realized ;  to 
leaven  human  life  with  that  purity,  unalloyed  with  supersti- 
tion, sanctimoniousness,  and  uncharity,  of  which  she  is  at  once 
the  high  priestess  and  the  type  and  emblem ;  and  steadfastly  to 
believe  in,  and  unweariedly  to  further  the  issues  of,  that  Divine 
Incarnation  in  which  Mary  sustained  the  part,  not  only  of  the 
physical  instrument  which  the  Almighty  deigned  to  use,  but  of 
the  spiritual  agent  whom  He  took  into  His  counsels,  and  who 
consciously  co-operated  with  Him.^-i 


-■*  The  recognition,  in  the  foregoing  exegetical  theory  of  this  card- 
inal point,  will,  1  apprehend,  make  the  theory  itself  acceptable  even  to 
Roman  theologians.     (Cp.  Campana,  op.  cit.,  toni.  i,  pp.  225ff.). 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE  D,  ON  MASTURBATION. 

It  is  no  part  of  the  present  writer's  purpose  to  attempt  any 
elaborate  addition  to  the  large  and  growing  literature  of  this 
part  of  the  subject  of  sex.  The  reader  who  desires  to  study 
this  subject  scientifically  may  profitably  consult  the  very  full 
and  able  presentation  of  facts  and  opinions,  in  the  first  volume 
of  Havelock  Ellis's  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex. 

However,  a  few  observations  seem  necessary  at  this  point, 
in  addition  to  the  references  to  masturbation  already  made ;  if 
for  no  other  purpose  than  to  define  more  clearly  than  is  pos- 
sible, solely  with  the  help  of  such  a  treatise  as  that  of  Havelock 
Ellis,  the  ethical  view  natural  as  well  as  Christian  morality 
seem  to  compel  us  to  take  of  this  practice. 

The  present  writer  thinks  it  unnecessary  to  record  in  full 
his  own  observations  and  inquiries  proving  that  masturbation, 
as  Ellis  carefully  notes,  is  common  enough  among  several 
species  of  animals,  chiefly  in  the  absence  of  normal  sexual 
gratification.!  It  is  possible  that  isolated  cases  may  become 
pathologically  addicted  to  the  habit,  and  practice  it,  owing  to 
the  ease  with  which  it  is  performed,  even  when  sexual  inter- 
course is  accessible.  An  observer  in  New  Zealand  mentions 
to  me  the  case  of  a  pigeon  appearing  to  masturbate  on  the 
roof  of  a  house. 

I  am  informed  by  a  gentleman  who  has  had  considerable 
experience  of  ferrets,  that  if  the  bitch  when  in  heat  cannot 
obtain  a  dog,  she  pines  and  becomes  ill.  If  a  smooth  pebble  is 
introduced  into  the  hutch  she  will  masturbate  upon  it,  thus 
preserving  her  normal  health  for  one  season.  But  if  this  arti- 
ficial substitute  is  given  to  her  a  second  season,  she  will  not,  as 
formerly,  be  content  with  it. 

It  should  be  noted,  on  the  other  hand,  that  superficial  ob- 
servation may  infer  masturbation  among  animals  from  appear- 


1  Cp.  Moll,  The  Sexual  Life  of  the  Child,  p.  29. 
(420) 


MASTURBATION    IN    PRIMITIVE    RACES.  421 

ances  which  do  not  in  reaUty  support  such  an  inference.  Three 
gentlemen  of  South  Africa,  who  had  kept  a  pet  male  monkey 
for  a  considerable  time,  inform  me  that  though  it  was  much 
given  to  handling  the  penis,  they  had  never  seen  it  practising 
actual  masturbation. 

In  Havelock  Ellis's  essay  it  is  suggested  that  masturbation 
is  known  among  primitive  races,  and  consequently  must  not  be 
thought  of  as  a  special  vice  of  civilization.  I  am  in  no  posi- 
tion either  to  confirm  or  to  refute  most  of  the  evidence  adduced 
in  support  of  this  view.  Havelock  Ellis  mentions  that  he  has 
been  unable  to  find  any  evidence  for  the  practice  of  masturba- 
tion among  the  Australian  blacks.  My  own  inquiries  have  like- 
wise elicited  from  a  high  authority  a  strongly  worded  negative. - 
With  regard  to  the  Maoris,  a  private  letter  gives  me  as 
the  nearest  Maori  equivalent  of  "to  masturbate,"  the  word 
"titoitoi'' ;  but  this  word  is  declared  a  rare  one;  and  the  writer 
of  the  letter,  a  distinguished  Maori  scholar,  says  that  he  knows 
of  no  allusion  to  the  practice  in  Maori  literature.  Indeed,  the 
word  "titoitoi"  does  not  exactly  signify  "to  masturbate" ;  but 
rather  "to  excite,  titillate  the  penis."  My'  informant  appears 
to  discredit  the  idea  that  masturbation  was  practised  among 
the  primitive  Maoris. 

From  another  source  I  learn  that  in  Raratonga  the  word 
for  "masturbate"  is  also  "titoi."  The  Maoris  and  the  Poly- 
nesians of  Cook  Islands  consider  the  act  unmanly.  They  apply 
to  it  a  phrase  meaning  "to  make  women  of  themselves,"  and 
the  practice  appears  to  be  generally  confined  to  children. 

A  gentleman  resident  for  some  years  among  the  Kaffirs  of 
South  Natal  replies  to  my  questions,  first,  that  he  has  found  no 
expression  equivalent  to  masturbate  in  the  language  he  knows ; 
and  secondly,  that  he  does  not  think  Kaffirs  practise  mas- 
turbation. 

It  is  of  course  needful  to  remember  that  inquiries  on  an 
obscure  point  such   as  masturbation  are  peculiarly  liable  to 


2  Cfy.  Hastings,  Enc.  Rel.  Eth.,  vol.  v,  p.  442a. 


422  THE    GREEK   AND   LATIN    CLASSICS. 

receive  inexact  or  imperfectly  informed  replies,  even  when 
presented  in  what  seems  the  likeliest  quarter  for  information. 
Even  men  of  capacity  and  ability  may  entirely  fail  to  notice,  in 
spite  of  the  fullest  opportunities,  what  they  themselves  feel 
no  interest  in  studying.  The  author  invariably  found  this  to 
be  the  case  in  prosecuting  his  inquiries  about  the  sexual  habits 
of  animals. 

Among  the  allusions  to  masturbation  in  the  Greek  and 
Latin  classics,^  there  are  some  in  which  it  seems  to  be  regarded 
as  ethically  indifferent,  in  others  it  is  vigorously  condemned. 
It  is  true  that  Aristophanes  alludes  to  masturbation  among 
both  men  and  women  without  any  note  of  serious  denunciation 
— such  was  perhaps  not  to  be  expected  in  a  comic  poet;  yet 
the  fact  of  his  connecting  the  practice  with  slaves  (Eq.,  24, 
29),  feeble  old  men  (Nub.,  734),  and  women  (Lys.,  109; 
Frag.,  309-10),  implies  that  neither  he  nor  his  audience  re- 
garded it  as  consistent  with  manliness.  If  ^schines  is  to  be 
understood  as  charging  Demosthenes  before  a  grave  assembly 
of  Greek  citizens  with  having  practised  masturbation — and  his 
words  probably  mean  as  much  (Cont.  Ctes.,  174) — the  posi- 
tion that  the  ancient  Greeks  regarded  masturbation  with  in- 
difference becomes  less  tenable. 

Among  the  Romans,  Juvenal,  as  has  been  already  noticed, 
refers  to  masturbation  among  schoolboys  in  terms  of  strong 
condemnation.  Martial  in  a  very  remarkable  epigram  (lib. 
ix,  41 )  denounces  it  as  wicked  and  unnatural ;  and  elsewhere 
(lib.  xi,  104),  Hke  Aristophanes,  notes  its  prevalence  among 
slaves. 

Morris  Jastrow,  Jr.,  says  that  masturbation  is  frequently 
referred  to  in  the  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  omen-literature; 
but  does  not  state  how  it  was  morally  regarded.'^ 

In  view  of  these  adverse  reflections  from  profane  writers 


3H.  Ellis,  Studies,  vol.  ii,  pp.  117,  198-9  (ed.  3,  vol.  i,  pp.  169, 
277f.). 

^  Jastrow,  Die  Religion  Babyloniens  und  Assyriens,  vol.  ii,  p. 
952,  No.  5. 


SCRIPTURAL   ALLUSIONS.  423 

of  antiquity,  it  must  be  maintained  a  fortiori  that  masturbation 
comes  within  the  scope  of  the  Biblical  condemnations  of  im- 
purity. Although  not  expressly  referred  to/*^  it  would  be  in- 
cluded in  the  general  term  aKaOapaia;^  it  is  possible  that  in 
later  Greek  this  word  was  specially  connected  with  mas- 
turbation. 

The     Catholic     theologians     condemned     masturbation. 6^ 
Aquinas  treats  masturbation  as  ethically  worse  than  fornica- 


^  Spero  equidem  fore  ut  lectores  benevolissimi  huius  voluminis 
mihi  conjecturam  de  sensu  versus  cuiusdam  Sanctarum  Scripturarum, 
audacter  sane,  sed  haudquaquam  modo  nugantis  facienti  veniam  dent. 
Etenim  verba  ista  obscurissima  apud  prophetam  Jeremiam  (31 :  22) 
aliquid  de  rebus  venereis  indicate  jamdudum  suspicor.  Tcsobhebh 
scilicet  amplecti,  sicut  vir  feminam  in  actu  sexuali  amplectitur;  tith- 
chammakin  vero  inasturbari  significare,  baud  penitus  impossibile  est. 
Saltern  hoc  verbo,  ut  forma  ejus  (Hithpael)  fere  suggerit,  aliquid 
quod  niulier  sibimet  ipsi  faciat,  ostendi  videtur.  Quod  sane  ad  verbum 
istud  tesobhebh  attinet,  amplexus  mulierum  apud  poetas  alicubi  simili- 
bus  verbis,  sc.  x^  et  diJ.4>nrlwT  apud  Homerum,  circwnfimdor  apud 
Lucretium  Ovidiumque,  describi  baud  ignoro.  Quae  tanien  loca  cum 
hoc  nostro  comparata,  analogiam  tantum  imperfectam  habere  videbun- 
tur ;  quippe  quod  de  amplexu  matris  filium  protegentis  (Hom.  II.  v, 
314)  vel  uxoris  mortem  viri  lugentis  (id.  xix,  284),  vel  etiam  de 
blandimentis  usitatissimis  amantium  (Lucret.  i,  40)  istis  verbis  "creavit 
Dominus  novum  super  terram,"  uti  omnino  non  possis.  Ellis  autem 
necnon  et  Rohleder  (Zeitschrift  fiir  Sexualwissenchaft,  No.  11,  p.  636) 
aliosque  viros  doctissimos,  credere  magnam  sane  partem  viduarum 
aliarumque  mulierum  quae  viris  careant  hand  raro  masturbari,  animad- 
vertendum  est.  Ellis  autem,  viatoribus  quamplurimis  ad  testimon- 
ium citatis,  mulieres  Orientalium  regionum  ad  istud  vitium  praecipue 
pronas  esse  asserit.  (Studies,  vol.  i,  ed.  2,  p.  167;  cp.  Gray,  art.  Cir- 
cumcision, Hastings,  Enc.  Rel.  Eth.,  vol.  iii,  p.  669b.)  Neque  scilicet 
interpretatio  Vulgatse  "deliciis  dissolveris"  hie  praetermittenda  est. 

Quodsi  sensus  verborum  re  ipsa  talis  sit,  Deum  Opt.  Max.  potius 
misericordia  quam  ira  in  istam  mulierem,  desolatam,  viri  egentem,  atque 
quasi  per  angustias  in  peccatum  detrusam,  moveri  notandum  est. 

6  Franz  Wenck,  Spirito  e  spiriti  nel  Nuovo  Testamcnte,  in  La 
Cultura  Contemporanea,  Marzo,  1911,  9,  17Sn,  apparently  takes  dKaOapa-ta 
to  mean  masturbation, — "vocabolo  proprio  di  Paolo  nel  N.  T.,  e  sta  a 
designare  I'abito  costante  della  impurita." 

CH.  Ellis,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i  (ed.  3),  p.  279. 


424  ETHICS   OF   MASTURBATION. 

tion;"  but  as  less  heinous  than  the  other  sexual  vices  against 
nature. 

We  have  seen  elsewhere  in  this  volume  that  an  enlarged 
science  of  the  sex  life  has  freed  humanity  from  the  exagger- 
ated fears  that  surrounded  masturbation.  None  the  less  the 
peculiar  difficulty  of  controlling  the  habit  and  preventing  it  run- 
ning to  excess  constitutes  a  special  danger  in  connection  with 
it;  for  it  remains  true  at  the  least  that  excessive  masturbation 
is  hygienically  as  unadvisable  as  sexual  intemperance  in  gen- 
eral; and  many  medical  authorities  still  regard  it  more  un- 
favorably than  excessive  normal  coitus.^ 

And  however  this  may  be,  the  freedom  from  pessimism 
which  science  has  won  for  humanity  in  this  connection  is  not  a 
liberty  to  be  used  as  an  occasion  for  the  fiesh,^  nor,  conse- 
quently, does  it  absolve  the  modern  moral  theologian  from  the 
duty  of  making  his  ethical  estimate  of  this  phenomenon.  In 
order  to  elucidate  the  ethics  of  masturbation,  we  have  to  sep- 
arate the  masturbatory  act  from  associations  of  license  and 
pernicious  excess.  Is  masturbation  wrong  in  principle?  This 
question  must  be  viewed  in  the  light  of  the  ethical  ideas  al- 
ready referred  to.  An  act  of  consciously  achieved  detumes- 
cence  which  fulfills  neither  the  purpose  of  procreation  nor  that 
of  love — the  physical  and  the  emotional  sides  of  the  sex  process 
— would  seem  essentially  wrong.  It  is  moreover  esthetically 
objectionable. 

It  may  be  urged  that  autoerotic  phenomena  are  inevitable 
in  the  sex  life,  if  that  life  is  denied  its  normal  expansion,  and 
that  masturbation  belongs  to  the  physical  group  of  these 
phenomena.  But  in  fact  the  whole  range  of  autoerotic  phe- 
nomena, in  common  with  everything  which  is  not  truly  normal 
to  the  sex  life,  however  numerous  those  phenomena  may  be, 
and  under  whatever  pressure  of  circumstances  they  may  arise. 


'^  Not  so — at  least  not  in  all  cases — Jeremy  Taylor  (Ductor  Dubi- 
tantium,  bk.  ii,  ch.  i,  rule  6). 

8  Ellis  and  Moll,  Handbuch  der  Sexualwissenchaften,  p.  620. 

9  Gal.  5  :  13. 


ETHICS    OF   MASTURBATION.  425 

become  transmuted  into  wrongdoing  in  the  moral  sphere  in 
proportion  as  they  are  accepted  by  the  will. 

The  autoerotic  experiences  of  saints  are  wrong  as  far  as 
the  carnality  with  which  they  are  sometimes  colored  is  allowed 
and  indulged;  as  far  as  the  subjects  of  these  experiences  con- 
sent to  the  lowering  of  their  ethical  ideals,  and  consciously 
accept  this  carnality  as  a  substitute  for  normal  sexuality.i^ 
The  latent  sensuous  element  strives  continually  for  expres- 
sion in  such  lives.  Their  greatest  moral  effort  is  expended  in 
combating  it;  and  it  successfully  achieves  its  grosser  manifes- 
tations only  when  the  moral  judgment  is  weakened  and  the 
mind  is  tending  toward  insanity.^  It  may  have  to  be  ad- 
mitted (in  spite  of  the  general  truth  of  such  religious  observa- 
tions as  I  Cor.  10:  13)  that,  for  reasons!  to  us  inscrutable  in 
the  economy  of  the  universe,  the  law  of  sacrifice  presses  so 
hardly  on  certain  particular  cases  as  to  seem  to  defeat  its  own 
purpose;  that,  e.g.,  by  exacting  compliance  with  its  demand 
for  sexual  abstention,  it  overtaxes  the  subject's  powers  of 
inhibition,  with  the  result  of  the  appearance  of  autoerotic  or 
other  abnormal  sexual  phenomena  in  the  life  of  that  subject. 
It  is  conceivable  that  when  there  are  special,  e.g.,  congenital, 
causes  of  physical  or  psychical  weakness  in  the  organism, 
moral  effort  and  autosuggestion,  in  spite  of  their  activity  and 
the  rectitude  of  their  direction,  may  fail  to  prevent  an  out- 
break, a  volcanic  upheaval  of  the  carnality  of  the  sexual  in- 
stinct.i-  So  far  as  responsibility  and  inhibitory  power  are 
absent,  such  phenomena  do  not  of  course  come  under  moral 
condemnation;  but  a  moral  question  of  the  deepest  moment 
faces  us  when  we  are  asked  to  consider  whether  any  stress  of 

10  History  accords  a  certain  measure  of  truth  to  Ford's  gener- 
alization :  "...  wenn  der  Mensch  nach  reinem  Geist  und  reiner 
Heiligkeit  schwarmt  und  dadurch  seine  wahre  Natur  verleugnet,  er 
unbewusst  in  die  plumpeste  Sinnlichkeit  zuriickzufallen  und  •damit 
letzterc  heilig  zu  sprechen  in  Gefahr  steht."     {Op.  cit.,  p.  344.) 

11  Q.  H.  Ellis,  Studies,  vol.  i,  ed.  3,  pp.  310ff.;  T.  C.  Hall,  art. 
Asceticism,  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Eth.,  vol.  ii,  p.  632. 

12  Cf.  supra,  p.  27. 


426  ETHICS    OF   MASTURBATION. 

circumstances  justifies  their  previous  acceptance  by  the  moral 
will. 

In  fine,  in  circumstances  where  legitimate  sexual  grati- 
fication is  unattainable  and  where  there  is  no  prospect  of  it,  do 
moral  considerations  or  do  they  not  allow  the  commission  of 
an  act  of  masturbation  faute  de  miciixf  Forel  reluctantly  sug- 
gests in  this  connection  that  a  physician  might  feel  called  on  to 
recommend  masturbation  in  the  last  resort — as  an  alternative 
to  castration — with  a  view  to  preventing  the  manifestation  of 
more  serious  sexual  perversions. ^-^ 

Is  masturbation,  in  such  cases,  likely  to  provide  the  pre- 
vention desiderated  ?  One  may  feel  grave  doubts  on  this  point, 
at  any  rate  as  regards  the  permanence  of  the  results.  For  if 
the  masturbatory  act  were  performed  under  the  stimulus  of 
abnormal  images,  as  one  would  expect  on  a  prima  facie  view, 
then,  although  it  would  afford  a  temporary  relief,  it  would  be 
likely  in  the  long  run  to  stereotype  the  misdirection  of 
the  instinct.  But  it  is  for  medical  science  to  throw  light  on  the 
question  whether,  in  the  case  of  a  sexual  pervert,  a  mastur- 
batory act  accompanied  by  the  moral  effort  to  coerce  the  sexual 
fancy  hack  into  the  normal  channel,  would  render  such  moral 
effort  more  permanently  effectual;  and  whether,  unless  such 
a  course  were  adopted  by  the  patient,  his  inhibitory  power 
over  his  special  perversion  would  be  likely  to  fail.^^ 

Should  such  questions  be  resolved  in  the  affirmative,  and  it 
be  proved  that  in  cases  of  such  extreme  difficulty  masturbation 
(carefully  controlled, — assuming  this  possibility)  may  be  re- 
garded as  of  possible  prophylactic  value,  it  must  none  the  less 
be  presented  always  as  a  deflection  from  the  ideals  of  sexual 
conduct.  It  is  therefore  not  to  be  recommended.  For  the 
doctor  to  take  over  the  patient's  responsibility  so  far  as  is  im- 


13  Forel,  op.  cit.,  p.  499,  10th  ed. 

11  Forel  gives  a  case  in  point :  "Er  war  ein  durchaus  guter, 
ethisch  hochstehender  Mensch,  geriet  in  Verzweiflung,  Hess  sich  aber 
nie  zu  einer  schadigenden  Handlung  hinreissen,  sondern  behalf  sich 
mit  Onanie  und  dergleichen."     {Op.  cit.,  p.  459,  ed.  10.) 


ETHICS    OF    MASTURBATION.  427 

plied  in  the  recommending  of  this  course,  would  seem  to  be 
undesirable  even  in  a  pathological  case.  Education  to  complete 
sexual  abstinence  is  the  ideal  course  for  such  cases,  and  the 
possibility  of  attaining  this  end  is  always  to  be  kept  in  view ; 
as  also  the  superiority  of  normal  and  heterosexual  imagina- 
tions to  the  others, — this  latter  point  to  be  considered  in  con- 
nection with  what  it  would  be  fatuous  to  ignore,  even  at  the 
risk  of  approximating  to  casuistical  subtlety,  viz.,  the  element 
of  spontaneity  in  sexual  emotion.  Should  an  act  of  masturba- 
tion occur,  even  in  these  latter  circumstances  and  with  a 
heterosexual  connotation,  it  should  not  be  regarded  by  the  sub- 
ject himself  as  other  than  a  moral  fall,  an  unworthy  and 
regrettable  incident.  His  special  circumstances  should  not 
absolve  him  from  the  duty  incumbent  upon  all, — of  resisting 
to  the  uttermost. 

When,  however,  an  external  judgment  of  such  a  matter 
is  attempted,  it  is  to  be  considered  how  widely  an  act  of  mas- 
turbation performed  under  such  pressure  of  circumstances  is 
differentiated  from  one  performed  by  a  normal  individual  who 
might,  after  an  exercise  of  self-control,  obtain  access  to  lawful 
sexual  gratification.  In  short,  circumstances  may,  and  not 
seldom  do,  put  masturbation  in  the  light  of  an  infirmity,  some- 
thing almost  spontaneous  and  inevitable ;  but  its  dvofxia^  when 
viewed  in  the  abstract,  must  never  be  lost  sight  of.  Therefore 
it  cannot  be  recommended  or  accepted,  even  temporarily,  as  a 
legitimate  substitute  for  normal  sexual  relations  legalized  and 
sanctified  by  marriage. 

Further,  it  is  requisite  to  mark  the  difference  between 
masturbation  and  artificial  birth  control.  The  question  may  be 
raised,  whether,  granting  that  birth  control  is  sometimes  justi- 
fiable in  married  life,  mutual  masturbation  might  not  be  ad- 
mitted as  one  of  the  methods  of  exercising  such  control.  It  is 
sufficient  in  answer  to  repeat  what  has  been  already  suggested 
in  these  pages  on  the  subject  of  birth  control  in  marriage,  viz., 
that  if  special  circumstances  indeed  give  it  a  moral  justifica- 
tion, at  least  it  should  be  performed  in  the  best  possible  way, 


428  ETHICS   OF   MASTURBATION. 

by  the  method  least  objectionable  from  the  point  of  view  of 
hygiene,  and  most  closely  approximating  to  the  normal  sexual 
act.  Deliberate  reciprocal  masturbation  does  not  fulfill  these 
conditions.  Condomatic  intercourse  involves  conjugation;  it 
fulfills  the  process  or  series  of  processes  comprised  in  the 
sexual  act,  stopping  short  only  at  procreation.  Masturbation 
does  not  carry  out  these  processes  in  their  order.  It  involves 
not  merely  leaving  the  sex  process  incomplete ;  were  that  the 
only  aspect  of  it,  moral  considerations  might,  in  accordance 
with  the  general  remark  made  in  another  place  (p.  220),  give 
it  a  certain  degree  of  justification;  but  it  involves,  further,  the 
perversion  and  positive  misdirection  of  the  sex  process. 

The  above  objections,  it  should  be  noted,  hold  good  of 
mutual  masturbation ;  but  it  is  not  so  clear  whether  the  act 
is  illicit,  e.v  parte  mulieris,  in  the  circumstances  described  by 
the  theologian  Gury,!^  i^e.,  ad  actum  conjugalem  quoad 
mulierem  inconsummatum  finiendum.  The  particular  reason 
which  seemed  to  Gury  decisive  has  since  been  scientifically 
disproved ;  and  it  is  consequently  preferable,  even  in  the  cir- 
cumstances mentioned,  to  avoid  the  course  in  question.  But 
in  so  complex  and  delicate  a  matter  it  is  hardly  to  be  won- 
dered at  if  some  moral  theologians  still  shrink  from  deciding 
the  point  with  a  more  categorical  negative. 

When  lastly  the  phenomenon  is  viewed  in  a  special  con- 
nection with  women,  the  moral  estimate  works  out  to  the  same 
result.  Gemelli's  just  and  sympathetic  remarks  cited  below, ^^ 
should  indeed,  first  of  all,  be  borne  in  mind;  and  they  are  in- 
dorsed by  the  Scriptural  passage  referred  to  above,  assuming 
that  the  interpretation  suggested  is  correct. 

15  Quoted  by  H.  Ellis,  Studies,  vol.  i,  ed.  3,  p.  279. 

16  "MuHer  enim  carne  et  ossibus  constat,  sicut  et  vir ;  in  ipsa 
quidem  concupiscentise  fomes  minus  gravis  baud  est;  quin  immo 
ratio  sane  exstat,  ob  quam  majorem  ipsa  indulgentiam  mereretur,  quia 
systema  ejus  nerveum  excitabilius,  sensus  vividiores,  ipseque  mobilior 
animus  totidem  causae  sunt,  quibus  mitius  ferendum  esset  judicium  de 
mulieris  quam  viri  lapsu,  et  illius  reatum  minoris  gravitatis  censeri 
oporteret."     (Gemelli,  op.  cit.,  p.  95.) 


ETHICS    OF    MASTURBATION.  429 

Yet  if  we  take  a  survey  of  cases,  which  the  investigations, 
e.g.,  of  Ellis  enable  us  to  do,  those  which  exhibit  resistance  to 
the  practice  we  are  considering  surely  evoke  a  larger  sym- 
pathy than  those  which  accept  it  as  a  working  theory  of  their 
lives.i'^  The  former,  in  spite  of  their  failures,  have  not 
necessarily,  as  I  have  demonstrated  on  a  previous  page,  for- 
feited their  title  to  the  spiritual  aureole  of  virginity;  the  latter 
we  must  not  judge,  but  may  not  honor. 


IT  Ellis,  Studies,  vol.  i,  ed.  3,  pp.  271ff. 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE  E,  ON  CIRCUMCISION. 

The  practice  of  circumcising  the  foreskin  is  not  peculiar 
to  the  Hebrew  race ;  nor  is  there  sufficient  reason  for  regard- 
ing the  Hebrew  narrative  of  its  Divine  institution  as  his- 
torically accounting  for  its  origin.  It  has  been  thought  by 
some  to  have  developed  from  the  custom  of  mutilating  an 
enemy  slain  in  battle  by  cutting  off  the  membrum  virile  and 
presenting  it  to  the  chief — a  custom  referred  to  in  I  Sam. 
20 :  27 .  As  a  further  development,  male  captives  may  have 
been  similarly,  though  not  so  dangerously,  mutilated  as  a  badge 
of  servitude  to  the  victorious  chief.  From  the  set  of  ideas 
thus  formed  might  arise  the  custom  of  circumcising  all  the 
males  of  a  tribe  and  offering  the  foreskins  as  a  badge  of  servi- 
tude to  the  god  of  the  tribe.  This  theory  of  the  origin  of  the 
practice  would  be  supported  by  evidence  making  circumcision  a 
form  of  the  blood  covenant  between  a  people  and  its  god ;  and 
it  must  be  observed  that  evidence  pointing — but  not  very  con- 
clusively— in  that  direction  is  forthcoming  in  certain  Aus- 
tralian tribes. 1  Herodotus  no  doubt  represents  the  attitude  of 
several  peoples  toward  circumcision  where  he  describes  it  as  a 
disfigurement  in  itself,  but  one  which  men  would  accept 
as  being  the  means  of  obtaining  through  increased  purity  a 
closer  communion  with  the  Divine  Being  (Trport/Aeovres  KaOdptot 
etvat   •^    ew/aeTreore/aoi,    ii,  27). 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  highly  probable  that  the  ideas 
outlined  above  have  been  grafted  upon  a  still  more  primitive 
stock  of  ideas  in  connection  with  circumcision ;  and  it  is  to 
these  latter  that  we  must  look,  as  Westermarck  has  done,  for 
the  first  appearance  of  this  custom  in  our  race.  According  to 
the  hypothesis  of  Westermarck,  circumcision  is  but  one  of  a 
number  of  similar  practices  of  mutilation,  having  sexual  at- 
traction as  their  object.  In  the  early  dawn  of  the  life  of  the 
race,  men  and  women  discovered  that  to  attract  attention  to 


1  Remondino,  History  of  Circumcision,  p.  45. 

(430) 


ORIGIN   OF   CIRCUMCISION.  431 

the  pubic  region  by  ornamentation, ^  depilation  or  circumcision 
was  an  effective  addition  to  natural  charms,  and  exceedingly 
helpful  in  the  competition  for  partners.-^  Little  is  to  be  gained 
by  discussing  the  local  origin  of  circumcision ;  this  problem  is 
at  any  rate  bound  up  with  the  general  one  of  the  early  migra- 
tory dispersion  of  the  human  race.  Herodotus  somewhat 
doubtfully  proposed  Ethiopia  as  the  place  of  origin  of  circum- 
cision. The  priority  of  Egyptian  to  Hebrew  circumcision, 
indicated,  according  to  Kuenen  and  others,  in  Jos.  5, — perhaps 
too  in  Jer.  9 :  25, — indirectly  supports  this. 

The  age  at  which  circumcision  was  performed  is  an  im- 
portant indication  of  its  purpose.  The  Hebrews  from  an  early 
date  performed  the  rite  on  infants,  as  do  their  modern  descend- 


2  The  tattooing  of  the  glans  penis  is  practised  among  the 
Tongans  and  other  Polynesians  (L.  H.  Gray,  art.  Circumcision, 
in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Eth.,  vol.  iii,  p.  665b.).  Crawley  (o/i. 
cit.,  p.  135)  endeavors  to  explain  the  origin  of  circumcision 
and  other  mutilations  by  reference  to  early  religious  ideas  and 
taboos.  It  seems  more  probable,  however,  that  this  practice  origi- 
nated before  the  evolution  of  a  system  of  taboos,  rather  than  as  one  of 
its  results.  Other  practices  of  nature-peoples,  such  as  elongation  of 
the  breasts,  painting,  hairdressing,  enlargement  or  confinement  of 
organs,  are  surely  more  naturally  explained,  with  Westermarck,  as 
having  sexual  ornamentation  for  their  motive,  than  on  the  principle 
contended  for  by  Crawley;  and  it  is  by  the  analogy  of  these  practices 
that  primitive  circumcision  can  be  most  readily  accounted  for.  Never- 
theless, that  the  religious  notion  of  sacrificing  a  part  to  safeguard  the 
whole  from  evil  influence  was  applied  later  to  the  practice  of  circum- 
cision, is  not  to  be  denied.  St.  Paul,  when  he  speaks  of  spiritual  cir- 
cumcision as  an  d7r^/c5i'(rtsToO(rw/xaTosr^scra/3/cds(Col.  2:  11),  had  a  develop- 
ment of  this  idea  in  his  mind.  Similarly,  the  religious  idea  of  circum- 
cision as  being  helpful  in  the  process  of  reincarnation,  a  notion  which, 
according  to  Frazer's  suggestion  (Independent  Review,  vol.  iv.  No.  14), 
may  have  obtained  at  one  time  among  the  early  Australian  natives,  is 
to  be  regarded  rather  as  an  accretion  to  the  rite  than  as  the  source 
of    its    institution. 

3  It  is  strange  that  L.  H.  Gray  in  his  elaborate  study  of  circum- 
cision (Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Ethics,  vol.  iii),  while  discussing  a 
number  of  theories  of  its  origin,  has  omitted  to  notice  this  simple  and 
probable  explanation. 


432  ACCRETIONS   TO   THE   RITE. 

ants;  but  there  are  reasons  for  thinking  that  infancy  was  not 
the  age  for  its  performance  in  still  earlier  times. -^^  Puberty 
was  the  circumcising  age  among  the  ancient  Egyptians,  as  it  is 
among  the  Australian  natives,  and  among  the  peoples  of  the 
Lower  Congo.'*  That  the  primitive  Hebrews,  like  the  Arabs, 
performed  the  rite  on  young  men  as  a  prelude  to  marriage, 
is  clear  from  the  root  hatJian.  These  facts  support  Wester- 
marck's  hypothesis.  In  view  of  the  variations  in  the  practice 
of  circumcised  peoples  on  this  point,  it  is  well  to  note  that 
puberty  is  more  likely  than  infancy  to  have  been  the  original 
age  for  the  performance  of  the  rite.  Motives  of  convenience 
or  religion  might  induce  a  people  who  formerly  circumcised  at 
puberty  to  transfer  the  rite  to  infancy;  but  once  a  tribe  had 
acquired  the  habit  of  circumcising  in  infancy,  it  is  unlikely  that 
they  would  allow  the  diiificulty  of  the  performance  to  be  en- 
hanced by  changing  to  an  age  nearer  manhood. 

In  course  of  time,  as  Westermarck  points  out,  a  primitive 
practice  takes  on  fresh  meanings,  particularly  of  a  religious 
character,  and  new  reasons  for  its  performance.  To  some  of 
these  developments,  in  connection  with  circumcision,  reference 
has  been  made  above.  It  is  probable  that,  among  some  peoples, 
the  chief  reason  for  retaining  circumcision  after  the  rite  had 
lost  its  original  significance,  was  the  desire  to  test  the  capacity 
of  the  males  for  bearing  pain — the  practice  was  cruelly  de- 
veloped among  the  Arabs  of  North  Africa  with  this  object. 
Among  others,  as  the  Hebrews,  it  was  associated  with  a 
religious  conception. 

It  accords  well  enough  with  analogy  that  the  existing 
practice  of  circumcision  should  become  for  the  Hebrews  a 
Divine  ordinance.  As  in  New  Testament  times  practices  of 
long  standing  like  religious  ablutions  or  the  laying  on  of  hands 
were  used  by  Christ  and  His  Apostles  to  fulfill  new  purposes, 


^^  See  Kennett,  art.  Israel,  in  Hastings,  op.  cit.,  p.  441a. 

4  But  not  apparently  among  the  peoples  of  the  Upper  Congo,  who 
circumcize  twelve  days  after  birth.  (Johnston,  The  River  Congo, 
pp.  276,  290.) 


HYGIENE   OF   CIRCUMCISION.  433 

on  account  of  the  readiness  with  which  those  practices  lent 
themselves  to  adaptation;  so  at  an  earlier  period,  Divine  wis- 
dom chose  a  well-known  custom  by  which  to  convey  a  new 
spiritual  truth.  Circumcision  is  admirably  adapted  to  become 
an  ethical  symbol.  The  figure  of  "circumcising  the  heart" 
used  in  both  Testaments,  vividly  expresses  the  difference 
between  a  heart  closed  in,  covered  with  old  impurity  and  im- 
pervious to  spiritual  influences,  and  a  heart  freed  from  selfish- 
ness and  prejudice,  and  receptive  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 
Nothing  better  could  have  been  chosen  as  the  Covenant  token. ^ 
St.  Paul's  opposition  to  circumcision  related  solely  to  its 
religious  aspect,  which  has  since  lost  its  importance  in  the 
Christian  world ;  and  it  need  not  therefore  be  given  a  place  in 
a  discussion  of  the  hygiene  of  circumcision.  A  large — I  be- 
lieve a  preponderating — body  of  medical  opinion  recommends 
the  practice  for  hygienic  reasons,  in  part  noted  already  by 
Herodotus.  Some  enthusiasts  perhaps  overrate  its  hygienic 
value.  Medical  works  must  be  consulted  for  a  full  discussion 
of  this  part  of  the  subject.  It  is  enough  here  to  recall  the  fact 
that  the  primitive  purpose  of  the  prepuce — that  of  protecting 
the  glans  penis — no  longer  exists  in  its  original  force,  owing  to 
the  adoption  by  mankind  of  clothes.  It  is  obvious  that  the 
prepuce  readily  becomes  subject  to  congenital  or  acquired  mal- 
formations, the  source  of  phimosis  and  attendant  evils,  early 
masturbation  being  the  worst.  When  the  prepuce  has  been 
removed,  the  glans  penis  is  no  doubt  sensitive  at  first,  but 
rapidly  becomes  sufficiently  hardened  to  prevent  irritation  and 
the  consequent  directing  of  the  subject's  attention  to  these 
parts.  The  cleanliness  of  the  glans  is  easily  preserved  in  a 
state  of  circumcision ;  without  moreover  the  dangerous  neces- 
sity of  subjecting  young  children  to  frequent  local  washings  of 
the  genitals — a  process,  as  Dr.  Guernsey  notes, "^  likely  to  cause 
premature  curiosity  and  excitement. 


^  For  the  spiritual   application   of  circumcision,  see   Driver's  note 
(Genesis,  Westminister  Commentary,  p.  191). 
•5  Plain  Talks  on  Avoided  Subjects,  p.  31. 

28 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE  F,  ON  NOCTURNAL 
POLLUTION. 

There  are  references  enough  in  the  byways  of  Hterature 
to  show  that  the  nocturnal  pollution  has  proved  puzzling  and 
distressing  to  mankind,  both  as  a  physical  phenomenon  and  in 
its  ethical  bearings.  There  has  been  considerable  discussion  of 
recent  years  as  to  whether  it  is  normal  or  pathological ;  and  if 
the  latter,  in  what  degree.  We  cannot  here  enter  fully  into  this 
dispute,  which  belongs  mainly  to  medical  literature.  ^  The 
general  prevalence  of  the  pollution  in  the  human  race  indicates 
at  any  rate  that  it  is,  except  in  excess,  but  a  slight  deviation 
from  normal  sexual  health.  As  to  what  constitutes  excess, 
there  is  probably  no  general  rule.  A  few  observers,  notably 
Mr.  Perry-Coste,  have  undertaken  to  keep  records  with  a  view 
to  investigating  this  point.  These  investigations,  backed  by 
opinions  based  on  large  observation,  established  at  least  the 
fact  that  for  most  constitutions,  one  pollution  in  ten  days  is 
not  excessive.  Some,  indeed,  have  them  much  more  seldom; 
while  others  may  have  them  oftener  without  experiencing  any 
consequent  debility.  The  frequency  of  nocturnal  emissions 
will  be  affected  by  that  rhythm  in  the  human  body,  the  alter- 
nate working  of  the  anabolic  and  catabolic  principles,  which, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  has  to  be  taken  account  of  in  investi- 
gating the  phenomena  of  sex.  Some  authorities  maintain 
that  exeess  must  never  be  predicated  of  the  emission  unless  it 
is  followed  by  weakness  and  depression. - 

Frequently,  therefore,  there  is  really  no  need  for  the  dis- 
tressful perplexity  experienced  by  nervous  subjects  of  emis- 
sions. Whatever  harm  seems  to  accrue  to  the  system  from 
these  occurrences  often  arises  rather  from  the  mental  dis- 
quietude which  they  occasion  than  from  any  pathological  in- 


1  See  Ellis  und  Moll,  Handbuch  der  Sexualwissenschaften,  pp. 
612ff.,  712ff. 

2  This  opinion — that  of  Curschmann — seems  still  the  one  commonly 
accepted  by  medical  scientists.  {Cp.  Fosner,  in  S.  and  K.,  op.  cit.,  ii, 
p.  726.) 

(434) 


THE    NOCTURNAL   POLLUTION.  435 

fluence  of  the  phenomenon  itself.  It  is  true  that  when  occur- 
ring with  undoubted  overfrequency,  pollutions  may  be  a  symp- 
tom of  a  generally  weakened  condition  of  the  sexual  system ; 
but  even  so,  there  is  no  just  occasion  for  despondency,  inas- 
much as  the  prognosis  of  most  cases  of  sexual  weakness  is 
favorable;  and  this  condition  may  be  ameliorated  or  cured  by 
proper  treatment — a  fact  to  which  our  attention  has  already 
been  called.  Sometimes  a  simple  cold-water  treatment,  atten- 
tion to  dieting,  and  regulation  of  the  hours  allotted  to  rest,  will 
reduce  the  frequency  of  emissions  without  recourse  being  had 
to  severer  or  more  difficult  treatment.^ 

Much  perplexity  has  surrounded  the  moral  aspect  of  the 
nocturnal  pollution.  The  suspicion  of  wrong  attaching  to  sex- 
ual relations  in  general,  in  the  sentiment  of  mankind,  was  sure 
to  fall  upon  this  mysterious  manifestation  of  sexual  activity. 
Hebrew  law  embodied  ceremonial  directions  concerning  pollu- 
tions. Medieval  thought  regarded  the  occurrence  of  them  as 
tainted  with  sin  if  in  any  way  provoked  or  encouraged  by  the 
imaginations  of  waking  hours."*  The  semiconscious  volition 
which  often  attends  the  sexual  dream,  the  reluctance  of  the 
will  even  during  sleep  to  consent  to  the  motions  of  the  sexual 
system,  strengthens  this  idea  of  moral  impurity  in  relation  to 
the  nocturnal  pollution.  The  anguish  of  souls  sensitive  to  the 
touch  of  impurity  even  in  sleep  finds  a  voice  in  the  ancient 
hymn : — 

"Hostemque  nostrum  comprime 
Ne  polluantur  corpora."^ 


3  I  venture  to  suggest  that  a  judicious  use  of  the  Sandow  exer- 
cises, especially  those  which  strengthen  the  back,  loins,  and  stomach 
muscles,  would  be  of  benefit  to  patients  suffering  from  sexual  weakness 
and  overfrequent  seminal  emissions. 

•*  Aquinas,  Sum.  Theol.,  ii»,  n^,  qu.  cliv,  art.  v. 
5  Tr,  in  A,  &  M.  Hymnbook : — 

"Our  ghostly  enemy  restrain. 
Lest  aught  of  sin  our  bodies  stain." 
"Keep  us     .     .     . 
Pure  in  our  foes'  despite." 


436  THE    NOCTURNAL   POLLUTION. 

This  ethical  fear  is  reflected  in  the  directions  to  intending 
celebrants  in  the  Roman  Missal. 

Nor  can  this  aspect  of  the  matter  be  wholly  set  aside  as 
false  and  groundless.  So  intricate  is  the  connection,  in  the 
sexual  as  well  as  in  other  spheres,  between  the  activities  of 
mind  and  of  body,  that  sexual  excitement  entertained  and 
allowed  without  any  attempt  at  inhibition  in  a  waking  state, 
induces,  by  a  physiological  law,  a  greater  spontaneity  of  ejac- 
ulation during  sleep.  Not  but  what  even  when  the  moral 
energies  of  the  will  have  continually  been  exerted  to  purify 
the  waking  thoughts,  physical  causes  will  of  themselves  fre- 
quently be  strong  enough  to  bring  about  a  nocturnal  pollution. 
This  is  sometimes  accompanied  by  the  aforesaid  semiconscious 
volitional  activity.  With  many  people  indeed  the  will-power 
becomes  sufficiently  awake  to  allow  of  their  inhibiting  the  pol- 
lution when  on  the  point  of  occurring.  Some  moralists  have 
gone  so  far  as  to  recommend  the  cultivation  of  a  habit  of 
semiconscious  inhibition,  as  if  it  were  a  matter  of  ethics.^  But 
it  ought  to  be  considered  whether  such  a  procedure  would  not 
intensify  nervous  conditions,  and  in  some  cases  do  more  harm 
than  the  emission  itself."^  While  the  nocturnal  pollution  cer- 
tainly ought  not  to  be  courted  and  prepared  for  by  the  con- 
scious attitude  of  the  mind  during  wakefulness,  it  is  a  mistake 
to  regard  it  with  a  large  amount  of  fear  and  anxiety,  in  either 
its  physical  or  its  moral  aspect.^ 


6  See  Stall,  What  a  Young  Man  Ought  to  Know,  pp.  90flf. 

"^  Cp.  Woods  Hutchinson,  What  Not  to  Teach  our  Children  upon 
Race  Hygiene,  in  Prevention,  vol.  iii.  No.  12,  p.  235. 

8  Reference  was  made  above  (p.  71)  to  pollution  occurring  in  the 
moments  of  waking,  or  to  the  prolongation  of  a  dream-pollution  into 
those  moments.  The  Roman  moral  theologians  take  a  common-sense 
view  of  this  phenomenon,  which  is  far  from  rare.  De  Joriis  (De  Magn. 
Matrim.  Sacramento,  pars  xix,  quaest.  xxxviii)  endorses  another  divine's 
opinion,  to  the  eflfect  that  "ceptam  in  somno  pollutionem  non  tenetur 
Evigilans  reprimere,  sufficit  enim  non  placere."  The  latter  caution  is  in 
general  all  that  is  needed.  Only  if  the  occurrence  becomes  very  fre- 
quent and  troublesome,  does  it  call  for  special  counterexpedients  {cp.  a 
case  in  H.  Ellis,  Studies,  Sexual  Selection  in  Man,  p.  226). 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE  G,  ON  THE  PATRISTIC  AND 
MEDIEVAL  ATTITUDE  TO  DIVORCE. 

The  early  Christian  teachers,  leaders,  and  fathers  of  the 
Church  present  us  with  a  large  body  of  opinion  on  divorce. 
Its  vital  center  is  the  scriptural  interpretation.  The  fathers 
viewed  life  in  the  light  of  the  Scriptures.  This  fact  by  no 
means  deprived  them  of  intellectual  freedom,  as  their  handling 
of  the  divorce  problem  shows.  They  were  faced  by  much  lax- 
ity in  the  secular  environment,  and  in  Roman  society  by  a 
theory  of  divorce  for  mutual  consent, — a  theory  which  was 
largely  and  readily  translated  into  practice ;  for  in  the  pagan 
world  it  was  balanced  by  few  considerations  of  chivalry  or 
patience  or  honor.  The  fathers  and  councils  were  able  to  show 
that  divorce  had  been  discouraged  even  from  the  earlier  stand- 
point of  the  religion  of  Israel.  The  Pentateuchal  legislation, 
although  it  had  not  taken  the  high  ground  of  Christian  ethics, 
had  not  been  lax  as  regards  divorce.  ^  The  element  of  laxity 
had  been  introduced  into  Jewish  theory  later  on.  The 
Christian  moralists  were  able  to  show  how  the  Old  Testament 
teaching  on  marriage  had  prepared  for  the  exaltation  of  the 
Christian  ideal  amid  the  confused  and  lax  views  generally 
prevailing  about  the  obligations  of  marriage ;  and  they  illus- 
trated the  compelling  force  of  this  ideal  from  the  conception  of 
Christ  as  the  infinitely  true  and  patient  husband  of  the  per- 
sonified Church. 

But  when  the  early  Christian  teaching  is  viewed  in  the 
aggregate,  it  becomes  clear  that  it  does  not,  any  more  than  the 
Scriptural  teaching  of  which  it  is  the  extension,  afiford  a  basis 


1  Chrys.  Horn,  in  Matthew  xvii ;  Aug.  de  Serm.  Domini,  ch.  i,  S. 
39.  The  Deuteronomic  legislation  was  calculated  to  make  men  pause 
before  resorting  to  divorce  (Driver  on  Deut.  24:  Iff.;  Luckock,  Hist, 
of  Marriage,  ch.  iii). 

(437) 


438  PATRISTIC   VIEWS    OF    DIVORCE. 

for  a  legalistic  system.^  Chromatius  condemns  remarriage 
after  divorce  on  the  ground  of  its  motive  being  unbridled  lust;^ 
and  no  doubt,  as  I  have  already  hinted,  the  fathers  had  before 
them  plenty  of  illustrations  of  such  remarriage.  They  were  in 
fact  so  intent  on  dealing  repressively  with  this  aspect  of  the 
matter,  that  they  had  no  inclination  to  work  out  the  more  com- 
plicated problems  of  matrimonial  failure. 

That  these  problems,  however,  had  begun  to  present  them- 
selves to  thoughtful  minds,  is  evident.  Christian  opinion  had 
to  consider  whether  adultery  was  a  permissible  or  an  impera- 
tive ground  of  divorce ;  also  whether  or  not  it  might  be  under- 
stood in  a  wider  sense  than  the  literal  one.  The  general  tend- 
ency was  to  consider  that  a  husband  ought  to  put  away  an 
adulterous  wife,  but  not  vice  versa.  There  was  nothing 
specifically  Christian  about  this  view ;  it  was  the  outcome  of 
"man-made"  morality,  and  S.  Basil  and  others  combated  it. 

The  larger  interpretation  of  adultery  was  maintained  by 
many  from  Hermes  (2d  century)  onward;  and  more  than  one 
equivalent  of  adultery  was  suggested. 

Theodoret,  while  discouraging  divorce,  observes :  "Un- 
less it  is  for  some  just  and  reasonable  cause  (Trpodaaiv)  that 
ye  loose  the  marriage-bond,  the  Lord  of  All  shall  be  your 
judge." 

Origen  says  that  even  in  the  New  Covenant  there  are 
injunctions  analogous  to  "Moses  for  your  hardness  of  heart 
suffered  you  to  put  away  your  wives."  After  glancing  at  mar- 
riage in  its  aspect  of  an,  indidgentia,  he  goes  on  to  say  that 
some  of  the  leaders  of  the  Church  have  extended  that  principle 


2  Von  ifobschiitz  has  well  observed  that  the  fact  has  established 
itself  more  and  more  that  in  the  records  of  long-past  ages— including 
the  Scriptures  in  these — ideals  might  be  found  for  the  individual  and 
social  life,  but  not  an  immediate  legal  system  (art.  Bible  in  the  Church, 
in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Eth.,  vol.  ii,  p.  592a).  This  fact  is  certainly 
already  visible  in  early  Christianity. 

3  Qu.  in  Watkins,  op.  cit.,  p.  246.  I  am  mainly  indebted  to  the 
work  of  Watkins,  who  gives  copious  quotations  in  the  original,  for 
my  knowledge  of  the  patristic  views. 


PATRISTIC   VIEWS    OF    DIVORCE.  439 

beyond  the  limits  actually  indicated  in  certain  New  Testament 
expressions,  viz.,  by  allowing  women  to  remarry  in  the  life- 
time of  their  canonical  husbands.  Now,  it  is  misleading  to 
say^  that  because  Origen  did  not  in  unqualified  terms  denounce 
such  remarriages,  therefore  he  "approved  of"  them.  On  the 
contrary,  he  presses  home,  with  all  the  force  he  can,  the  need 
of  faithfully  and  persistently  asking  God  for  the  grace  and 
gift  of  chastity — for  in  the  Father's  view  it  is  a  gift — in  cases 
of  matrimonial  failure.  Yet  it  is  true  that  Origen  regarded 
the  action  of  the  aforesaid  clergy,  in  permitting  remarriage, 
as  "not  wholly  unreasonable;  for  it  is  natural  that  this  con- 
cession should  be  made,  though  contrary  to  the  primal  laws 
and  precepts,  as  being  a  slight  evil  in  comparison  with  worse.""' 

The  harder  problems  of  matrimonial  ethics  could  not 
wholly  escape  the  notice  of  this  great  divine.  He  devotes  some 
sentences  to  the  idea  that  there  are  other  ways  by  which  one 
spouse  may  drive  another  in  the  direction  of  adultery,  besides 
actual  dismissal.  Withdrawing  from  the  marriage-bed  on  the 
pretext  of  sanctity  may  become  blameable  on  these  grounds. 
According  to  Origen,  a  man  who  entirely  ignores  his  wife's 
sexual  needs  is  perhaps  more  culpable  than  one  who  has 
divorced  his  wife  for  some  grave  reason  other  than  adultery. 

Timothy  of  Alexandria,  in  the  fourth  century,  declared 
himself  unable  to  decide  as  to  the  lawfulness  of  divorce  with 
remarriage  in  the  case  of  a  wife's  acute  insanity.  Lactantius 
explicitly  admitted  remarriage  after  divorce  for  adultery. 
Epiphanius  did  the  like,  and  by  employing  the  expression 
KaKY]  aiTia,  grave  charge,  evidently  accepted  the  larger  inter- 
pretation of  adultery. 6 

The  idea  of  hell  being  an  essential  part  of  the  doctrine  of 
moral   retribution, — the    content    and   realization   of   the   idea 


^  With  Kitchin,  Hist,  of  Divorce,  p.  24. 
5  Com.  on  St.  Matthew,  19. 

^  In  the  passage  Panarion  lix,  cap.  4,  cited  by  Watkins  and  Luck- 
ock,  V   must  have  slipped  out  through  confusion  with  the  final  letter  of 

Te\evTr](rdffr]. 


440  PATRISTIC   VIEWS    OF   DIVORCE. 

suggest  further  questions/ — it  has  a  rightful  place  in  a  con- 
sideration of  divorce.  But  to  introduce  it  in  order  to  fore- 
close theological  inquiry  and  paralyze  ethical  judgment,  indi- 
cates a  lack  of  discrimination.  Chrysostom's  treatment  of  the 
divorce  question  is  faulty  on  this  ground.  He  relied  on  the 
threat  of  hell  to  justify  his  intolerably  unsympathetic  attitude 
to  the  trials  of  married  life.  What  can  be  thought)  of  such 
teaching  as  that  of  the  tractate  De  Virginitate,  where  marriage 
is  set  out  as  a  servitude  which,  however  hard  and  bitter,  has 
to  be  borne?  That  Chrysostom  expects  it  to  be  generally,  or 
frequently,  hard  and  bitter,  is  clear  from  his  poor  opinion  of 
women.  A  particularly  unpleasing  feature  of  his  doctrine  is 
his  refusal  to  accord  any  credit  or  eulogy  to  separated  partners 
who  refrained  from  remarriage  and  strove  to  keep  chaste. 

Chrysostom's  harshness  was  not  unprecedented.  Basil 
had  expressed  himself  as  follows,  in  the  Hexahemeron : 
"However  rough  and  surly  and  ill-tempered  one  spouse  may 
be,  the  other  must  put  up  with  him  or  her,  and  not  attempt  to 
break  the  conjugal  unity  on  any  pretext  whatever.  Does  he 
beat  you?  He  is  your  husband  all  the  same.  Does  he  drink? 
He  has  been  made  one  with  you,  however,  by  the  bond  of 
nature.  Is  he  rough  and  sullen?  Yet  he  is  one  of  your  mem- 
bers, yea,  the  most  honorable  of  them  all." 

Such  language,  if  it  is   in  place  in   relation  to^  a  moral 


"*  A  tragedy  from  America  was  recorded  in  the  English  papers  a 
few  years  ago.  A  young  couple  who  had  tried  adulterous  love,  found 
themselves  disillusioned,  and  committed  suicide  by  gas  fumes.  The 
letter  left  by  the  female  victim,  a  very  young  and  beautiful  married 
woman,  was  most  pathetic.  I  have  lost  the  cutting ;  but  my  memory 
serves  me  well  enough.  "Cynical,  young  and  absorbed  in  all  the  ex- 
citement of  the  great  city,  Fred  (her  paramour)  has  often  scoffed 
at  old  things  like  religion.  But  I  have  learnt  that  there  is  truth  in 
what  we  used  to  be  told,  and  that  the  wages  of  sin  are  something 
worse  than  death.    It  is  hell." 

There  are  theological  considerations  which  allow  us  to  hope  for 
a  happy  ultimate  issue  even  to  such  an  episode ;  but  in  itself  it  is 
unspeakably  sad,  fraught  with  intense  human  suffering. 


PATRISTIC  VIEWS   OF   DIVORCE.  441 

ideal,  becomes  repellent  when  indorsed  by  secular  enactments. 
Basil,  however,  had  no  idea  of  bringing  his  teaching  against 
divorce  into  this  latter  connection.  It  was  not  till  the  time  of 
Innocent  I  (410  a.d.)  that  the  attempt  was  made  to  realize 
the  ideal  by  secular  legislation.  As  for  Basil,  when,  from 
presenting  the  ideal  by  suasion  and  eloquence,  he  turned  to 
bring  specific  matrimonial  difficulties  into  relation  with  it  in 
an  ecclesiastical  code — a  code  whose  rules  were  enforceable  by 
spiritual  methods — he  saw  that  failure  to  reach  the  ideal  must 
be  ethically  evaluated  according  to  circumstances.  Thus  he 
said  that  soldiers'  wives  who  presumed  their  husbands'  deaths 
and  married  again  were  less  blameable  than  wives  who  did  the 
like,  having  been  deserted  by  civilian  husbands ;  the  presump- 
tion in  the  former  case  being  stronger. 

The  pronouncements  of  the  early  Church  councils  on 
divorce  vary  as  do  those  of  the  fathers.  It  need  hardly  be 
said  that  they  uniformly  discouraged  reckless  divorce;  but 
such  a  standpoint  as  that  of  the  Council  of  Aries  (314)  in 
regard  to  remarriage  is  significantly  considerate  toward  human 
nature.  It  was  decided  that  by  every  possible  moral  per- 
suasion, exhortation  and  assistance,  the  parties  to  a  divorce 
were  to  be  restrained  from  marrying  others.  The  restraints 
are  the  negative  ones  of  suspension  from  spiritual  privileges ; 
and  it  should  be  observed  in  this  connection  that  the  refusal 
of  Absolution  and  consequent  withholding  of  Communion 
imply  "that  the  offense  committed  is  one  with  respect  to  which 
the  Church  has  no  authority  to  promise  the  Divine  pardon,  but 
does  not  imply  a  claim  to  limit  God's  power"  to  grant  forgive- 
ness, and  must  not  be  taken  as  a  declaration  that  the  guilty  per- 
son will  certainly  be  finally  lost."^ 

Before  leaving  the  fathers  it  is  proper  to  observe  that 
there  is  something  quite  incongruous,  even  unintentionally 
ofifensive  in  the  free  use  made  by  some  divines  of  the  word 
"lax,"  to  label  patristic  views  with  which  they  do  not  agree. 

^  W.  M.  Foley,  art.  Adultery  in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Eth.,  vol. 
i,  p.  133a. 


442  DIVORCE   IN    THE    MIDDLE    AGES. 

To  suggest  that  men  like  Lactantius,  Origen,  Epiphanius^  Basil, 
Theodoret,  Theodore  of  Tarsus, — men  of  ascetic,  devout,  self- 
sacrificing  life;  men  who,  like  their  Master,  had  given  up  their 
own  sex  lives  for  humanity's  sake, — were  "lax"  in  their  moral 
theories,  is  intolerable.  If  they  said  that  in  certain  circum- 
stances remarriage  after  divorce  might  be  justifiable  (they 
never  put  it  more  encouragingly  than  that)  ;  or  if  they  held 
that  certain  things  might  be  equivalent  to^  adultery  as  grounds 
of  divorce,  it  was  not  from  "laxity,"  but  because  they  had 
conscientiously  come  to  that  conclusion. 

Luckock's  contention^  that  divorce  a  vinculo  originally 
meant  simply  declaration  of  nullity  ab  initio,  while  it  is  meant 
to  strengthen,  really  damages  the  case  for  the  legal  enforce- 
ment of  the  ideal  of  indissolubility.  It  is  vain  to  claim  that  in- 
dissolubility is  maintained  because  divorce  is  forbidden ;  while 
yet  divorce  is  brought  in  under  another  name.  It  was  charac- 
teristic of  medieval  Western  Christianity — the  tendency  is  still 
strongly  represented — to  draw  up  elaborate  systems  of  rules, 
and  then  to  spend  much  ingenuity  in  studying  how  to  slip 
through  them.  It  happened  thus  in  regard  to  divorce.  Ways 
were  discovered  of  eluding  the  strictness  or  modifying  the 
impracticability  of  the  prohibition.  The  idea  of  nullity  of 
marriage  unfolded  numerous  possibilities  of  separation  and 
freedom.  There  were  many  grounds  on  which  it  could  be  de- 
clared ;io  and  it  would  seem  that  this  method  of  escaping  from 
marriage  was  frequently  resorted  to.  Even  Professor  Whit- 
ney, of  King's  College,  London,  while  maintaining  before  the 
English  Divorce  Commission^  that  the  number  of  divorces 
obtained  by  indirect  methods  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  smaller 
than  is  commonly  supposed,  safeguards  himself  against  stating 
that  the  cases  of  nullity  were  few. 


9  Luckock,  Hist,  of  Marriage,  p.  174. 

10  Rockwell,  Die  Doppelehe  des  Landgrafen  Phillip  von  Hessen, 
refifs.  under  Ehehindernisse ;  Howard,  op.  cit.,  vol.  ii,  pp.  56ff. ;  Dibdin 
and  Healey,  Eng.  Church  Law  and  Divorce,  p.  24. 

11  As  reported  in  The  Daily  Telegraph,  Nov.  23,  1910. 


MEDIEVAL   MORALS.  443 

The  modern  Roman  Church  has  not  ceased  to  use  this 
method  of  quahfying  the  principle  of  indissolubiHty.  Cases 
are  given  in  the  periodical,  Roman  Documents  and  Decrees;^- 
but  I  do  not  know  whether  the  authorities  have  few  or  many 
to  deal  with  yearly.  Other  legislatures,  as  the  British,  still 
admit  several  grounds  of  nullity. ^'^ 

Even  if  Professor  Whitney  is  right  in  thinking  that,  nul- 
lity apart,  the  marriage  system  of  the  medieval  Church  worked 
with  few  divorces  in  the  strict  legal  sense,  it  must  not  be  con- 
cluded that  the  standard  of  sexual  morality  was  high.  Adul- 
tery was  widely  connived  atM  It  falls  to  be  noted,  further, 
that  both  the  legal  and  the  moral  estimate  of  the  concubinate 
rose  considerably  during  the  Middle  Ages.  As  early  as  the 
Christian  Council  of  Toledo  (a.d.  400),  it  was  enacted  that 
a  man  who  had  a  concubine  instead  of  a  wife  was  not  to  be 
excluded  from  the  Holy  Communion  as  long  as  he  kept  to  the 
one.  Here  the  concubinate,  while  it  does  not  expressly  take  on 
the  permanency  of  monogamic  marriage,  models  itself  none  the 
less  on  the  monogamic  principle ;  and  it  is  a  matter  of  just 
inference,  from  the  evidence  available,  that  many  people  evaded 
the  unalterable  status  of  marriage  by  recourse  had  to  a  state 
wdiich  had  become  one  of  at  least  second-rate  respectability, 
and  had  acquired  a  legal  basis. i-"* 


12  Washbourne   (London);  Benziger  (N.  Y. ). 

13  Whaclcoat,  Every  Woman's  Own  Lawyer,  ch.  xvii. 

1^  Ploss-Bartels,  Das  Weib,  8,  Ed.  i,  pp.  523,  692;  art.  Adultery, 
in  Hastings,  Encyc.  Rel.  Eth.,  vol.  i,  p.  133a.  Westermarck  says 
(Moral  Ideas,  voL  ii,  p.  432)  that  the  immorality  of  the  Middle  Ages 
was  gross  and  open. 

15  Lea,  Hist,  of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy,  vol.  i,  p.  231,  n.  1 ;  art. 
Concubinage  (Christian,  and  Greek  and  Roman)  in  Hastings,  Encyc. 
Rel.  Eth. 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE  H,  ON  POLYGAMY. 

To  pursue  the  study  of  polygamy  with  any  profit,  it  is 
necessary  to  ehminate  every  element  of  prejudice  and  panic. 
A  warning  of  this  kind  is  given,  even  in  connection  with  the 
strange  phenomenon  Mormonism,  by  two  historians  of  the 
latter  movement. ^  Of  the  pleas  put  forward  in  the  developed 
apology  for  polygamy,  some  are  negative ;  it  does  not  meet 
with  definite  condemnation  where  such  condemnation  might 
fairly  be  looked  for.  And  some  are  positive ;  it  is  attempted 
to  adduce  reasons  of  expediency  in  its  favor. 

Tlie  former  class  calls  for  prior  consideration.  The  con- 
demnation of  polygamy  cannot  be  based  on  explicit  Scriptural 
prohibitions ;  for,  as  Luther  observed,  none  such  exist.^  Con- 
sequently, many  divines  from  Augustine  onward,  have  hesi- 
tated to  pronounce  an  absolute  condemnation  of  polygamy,  or 
at  least  of  polygyny.^  The  theoretical  Christian  opposition  to 
it  is  based  on  inference. 

Peter  Lombard  and  Aquinas  may  be  taken  as  authoritative 
exponents  of  the  developed  ecclesiastical  case  against  polyg- 
amy. The  first  named  maintained  that  polygamy  is  wrong  as 
being  against  the  primal  monogamic  law, — "secundum  in- 
choationis  modum  inter  duos  tantum  per  omnem  successionem 
temporum  contraheretur  conjugium  si  primi  homines  in  obedi- 
entia  perstitissent."'*  Yet  he  sees  no  inconsistency  in  the  fact 
that  God  gave  command  or  a  dispensation  to  certain  persons  to 
do  this  thing,  evil  in  itself,  in  order  that  subsequent  good  might 
come.  The  proposition  on  which  he  bases  this  argument  is 
"pro  varietate  temporum  varia   invenitur   dispensatio   Condi- 


1  Cannon  and  Knapp,  Brigham  Young  and  his  Mormon  Empire, 
p.  237. 

2  Westermarck,  Hist,  of  Human  Marriage,  p.  434. 

3  Watkins,  e.g.,  exhibits  this  caution   (Holy  Matrimony,  p.  634). 
■*  Sent.,  Hb.  iv,  dist.  xxxiii. 

(444) 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    POLYGAMY.  445 

toris,"  This  has  since,  as  we  shall  see,  been  reaffirmed;  and 
has  been  stated  in  connection  with  the  variation  of  other  cir- 
cumstances besides  that  of  time.  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  mar- 
shals as  the  principal  objections  to  polyg>'ny,  and  d  fortiori  to 
polyandry,  the  fact  that  the  polygamic  contract  is  not  recon- 
cilable with  the  monogamic;  the  existence  of  sexual  jealousy; 
the  primitive  ideal  of  matrimony ;  the  mystical  and  sacramental 
conception  of  marriage,  resulting  from  the  Christianizing  of 
the  primitive  ideal.  The  idealistic  argument  is,  in  Aquinas's 
own  view,  the  strongest  of  these :  it  is  only  the  sacramental  or 
mystical  aspect  of  matrimony  that  is  fully  obscured  or 
destroyed  by  polygamy ;  though  it  also  endangers  other  func- 
tions of  marriage.^ 

The  ethical  question  of  polygamy  has  often  perforce  ob- 
truded itself  in  the  mission  field.  In  1888,  the  Anglican 
bishops,  while  decisively  rejecting  any  contact  of  polyandry 
with  organized  Christianity,  left  the  question  of  polygyny  a 
little  open  on  one  side.  It  was  decided  that  a  female  convert 
who  is  the  wife  of  a  polygamist  husband  may  in  some  cases 
be  permitted  to  continue  conjugal  relations  with  him  after 
Baptism.  In  that  case  the  union  would  become,  to  her. 
Christian  marriage,  and  therefore  both  exclusive  and  indis- 
soluble.*' The  necessity  of  preserving  for  the  present  this 
illogical  attitude  to  polygyny  was  further  emphasized  by  sev- 
eral speakers  at  the  Pan-Anglican  Congress  in  1908.'^  Chris- 
tian hesitation  about  the  ethics  of  polygamy  can  be  further 
illustrated.  We  have  already  seen  that  in  early  medieval 
society  the  concubinate  approximated  to,  though  it  never 
definitively  attained,  the  moral  level  of  monogamy;  and  the 

^  Suppl.  Sum.  Theol.,  quasst.  Ixv. 

6  Watkins,  Holy  Matrimony,  p.  628fTf. 

''  The  Times  Repoft,  pp.  23ff .  The  attitude  above  mentioned  is 
illogical;  for  it  might  be  asked  if  the  polygamous  state  is  altogether 
irreconcilable  with  the  claims  of  Christianity,  ought  even  the  wives 
to  continue  living  in  it  after  Baptism?  There  is  an  informing  article 
on  polygamy  as  a  problem  of  the  mission  field,  by  Bishop  Gibson,  in 
The  East  and  the  West,  vol.  v,  No.  18.  / 


446  CHRISTIANITY   AND    POLYGAMY. 

Church  exhibited  a  certain  amount  of  tolerance  toward  the 
situation  thus  created. ^  In  the  later  Middle)  Ages,  the  ques- 
tion received  a  fuller  academic  discussion,  of  which  an  ac- 
count is  given  in  Rockwell's  monograph,  Die  Doppclchc  des 
Landgrafen  Phillip  von  Hesscn.  A  number  of  divines, 
Roman  Catholic  as  well  as  Reformed,  thought  that  the  ethical 
question  connected  with  polygamy  was  not  finally  settled. 
They  considered  that,  as  God  had  in  times  past  seen  fit  to  allow 
polygyny  even  to  the  chosen  agents  of  His  self-revelation,  it 
was  conceivable  that  the  same  thing  might  happen  again. 
"Posset  quidem  Deus  dispensare  nunc  sicut  tunc,  si  ejus 
placeret  voluntati."^  There  were  various  opinions  as  to  how 
the  Divine  Will  in  this  matter  might  be  revealed.  Some 
thought  the  Pope  could  give  the  necessary  dispensation ;  some 
that  the  secular  law  might,  on  grounds  of  social  expediency, 
modify  its  prohibition  of  polygamy ;  some  that  a  special  revela- 
tion would  be  necessary  to  justify  any  change  in  the  existing 
moral  system. 

It  would  be  an  unfair  way  of  putting  the  matter,  to  say 
that  these  moralists  "favored"  polygamy.  It  would  be  quite 
unjust  to  accuse  them  of  laxity.  There  was  no  question  with 
them,  as  with  the  Mormons,  of  accepting  polygamy  as  a  gen- 
eral social  principle.  They  were  viewing  it  in  connection  with 
exceptional  circumstances.  The  extensive  calamities  of  the 
time,  particularly  the  great  and  constant  wars,  forced  the 
problem  of  the  ethics  of  polygamy  upon  their  consideration. 
Indeed,  if  any  circumstances  could  justify  polygamy,  i.e., 
polygyny,  the  numerical  disproportion  of  the  sexes  and  the 
general  deterioration  of  morals  consequent  on  war  would  seem 
to  be  such.io    When,  to  use  the  expressive  Biblical  phrases,  a 

s  See  p.  443.  Bishop  Gibson  quotes  from  a  letter  of  Father  Pul- 
ler's in  which  the  writer  draws  a  parallel  between  South  African  polyg- 
amy and  the  concubinage  with  which  the  early  Church  had  to  deal. 

9  Gabriel  Byel,  qu.  by  Rockwell,  op.  cit.,  p.  228. 

^^  Cp.  Uhlhorn,  Die  christliche  Liebesthatigkeit,  pp.  626,  629.  Even 
Cannon  and  Knapp,  in  their  drastic  criticism  of  polygamy  (Brigham 
Young  and  his  Mormon  Empire,  p.  241)  incline  to  admit  this. 


CAN    POLYGYNY    BE   JUSTIFIED?  447 

man  is  more  rare  than  fine  gold;ii  when  seven  women  are 
taking  hold  of  one  man  ;12  when  the  sexual  needs  of  desolate 
women  force  them  into  the  contrary  and  unnatural  masculine 
role, 13  what  wonder  is  it  if  the  relations  of  the  sexes  fall 
into  grave  disorder?  It  is  a  question  in  such  circumstances 
whether  a  legislature's  duty  is  to  let  things  be  as  they  are, 
in  the  hope  that  they  will  eventually  regain  their  equilibrium ; 
or  to  try  the  aforesaid  bold  experiment  to  regulate  the  con- 
fusion. There  is,  in  point  of  fact,  historical  evidence  of  the 
adoption  of  the  latter  course.  Polygyny  was  allowed  in  parts 
of  Germany  after  the  Thirty  Years'  War.^"'  I  am  unaware 
of  other  instances  of  such  legal  recognition  of  it;  but  an 
analogous  modification  of  an  ethical  system  is  the  papal  per- 
mission to  marry  granted  to  the  clergy  in  some  of  the  South 
American  States  in  the  nineteenth  century. i"' 

Whether  or  not  such  exceptional  circumstances  constitute 
a  limited  justification  of  polygamy,  the  mention  of  them  di- 
rects us  toward  those  positive  considerations  in  the  apologetic 
of  polygamy,  to  which  reference  was  just  now  made.  For  the 
toleration  of  polygamy  has  been  mooted  in  other  social  con- 
nections besides  the  growth  of  population.     It  has  been  ad- 


11  Is.  13:  12. 

12  Is.  4:  1. 

13  Jer.  31 :  22.     (See  supra,  p.  423.) 

14  The  following  is  the  Nuremberg  ordinance  of  Feb.  14,  1650. 
The  original  is  given  in  Rockwell,  op.  cit.,  p.  280,  No.  2:  "To  make 
up  the  loss  in  population  due  to  the  Thirty.  Years'  War  and  to  pesti- 
lence," it  was  decided,  "to  limit  the  numbers  of  young  men  admitted 
to  monasteries;  to  encourage  the  marriage  of  priests;  and  that  every 
man  shall  bd  allowed  to  marry  two  wives;  but  that  in  this  connection 
each  and  every  man  shall  constantly  bear  in  mind,  and  shall  be  often 
admonished  from  the  pulpit,  that  he  do  steadfastly  and  discreetly  be- 
have himself,  and  give  all  due  diligence  that  as  a  married  man  who 
has  ventured  to  take  two  women,  he  not  only  provide  for  both  wives 
in  all  needful  ways,  but  also  guard  against  discord  between  them." 

15  Readers  of  E.  F.  Knight's  Voyage  of  the  Falcon,  ch.  xxiii,  will 
remember  that  his  tour  in  Paraguay  after  the  wars  of  Lopez  fully 
indorses  the  Biblical  expressions  just  referred  to. 


448      MODERN  ADVOCACY  OF  POLYGAMY. 

vocated  on  eugenic  grounds;  as  a  preventive  of  prostitution, 
viz.,  as  constituting  a  form  of  sexual  union  which  is  at  any 
rate  superior  to  that  depraved  and  irresponsible  form;  and  to 
meet  exceptional  conjugal  difficulties.  Some  premonition  of 
these  views  appears  indeed  already  in  the  older  discussions  re- 
sumed by  Rockwell.16 

Among  contemporary  attempts  to  obtain  for  polygamy, 
not  merely  an  unprejudiced,  but  even  a  sympathetic  considera- 
tion, as  a  possible  factor  in  the  social  systems  of  future  civili- 
zation, we  may  here  note  that  of  Forel.i'''  He  observes  that 
polygyny  has  assumed  several  forms  in  the  course  of  its  his- 
tory, and  refers  to  one,  found  among  the  Columbian  Indians, 
which  he  considers  is  not  liable  to  one  of  the  greatest  practical 
objections  to  this  institution,  the  tendency  to  lower  the  social 
and  spiritual  status  of  women. i^  Facts,  moreover,  are  ad- 
duced by  this  and  other  leading  anthropologists  and  sociolo- 
gists, calculated  to  allay  the  uneasy  feeling  that  polygamy 
would  ever,  in  any  form,  spread  at  all  widely  in  the  modern 
civilized  world.  It  is  pointed  out  that,  even  in  primitive 
societies,!^  polygamy  tends  to  gravitate  toward  monogamy. 
This   holds   true    of   both    its    main    divisions.      It    is   arsfued 


16  See,  further,  Cannon  and  Knapp,  op.  cit.,  pp.  243ff. ;  Van 
Wagenen,  American  Sterilization  Laws  (Eugenics  Educ.  Soc),  p.  5. 

i'^  Forel,  Die  sexuelle  Frage,  pp.  183,  Z77  (cp.  C.  Gasquoine  Hart- 
ley, op.  cit.,  p.  279;  Worcester,  McComb  and  Coriat,  Religion  and 
Medicine,  p.  138).  Fore!  would  give  even  polyandry  a  place  in  the 
social  system  in  certain  circumstances.  Polyandry,  it  should  be  re- 
marked, is  more  generally  distasteful  even  than  polygyny;  the  Lambeth 
Conference  of  1888  would  not  discuss  it  (Watkins,  op.  cit.,  p.  624). 
The  Summa  Angelica,  quoted  by  Rockwell  (op.  cit.,  p.  291)  held  that 
a  papal  dispensation  could  allow  polygyny,  but  not  polyandry.  To 
Gabriel  Byel,  a  commentator  on  the  Sentences  of  Peter  Lombard,  even 
polyandry  in  certain  circumstances  was  conceivable,  but  not  without  a 
special  divine  sanction  or  revelation  (ibid.,  p.  288). 

18  Polygamy,  when  the  aforesaid  tendency  is  operative,  is  thought 
by  some  writers  to  favor  indirectly  the  extension  of  homosexual  prac- 
tices (Westermarck,  Moral  Ideas,  vol.  ii,  pp.  466f.). 

i9Forel,  Die  sexiielle  Frage,  ed.  1,  p.  179;  ed.  10,  p.  200. 


MODERN  ADVOCACY  OF  POLYGAMY.      449 

a  fortiori  that  in  developed  modern  society, — where,  if  Forel's 
generaHzation  is  sound,  there  exists,  in  addition  to  reHgious 
traditions,  a  psychological  obstacle  to  the  growth  of  polygamy, 
viz.,  the  exclusive  and  monandrous  element  in  women's  sexual 
emotion, — no  great  or  permanent  extension  of  polygamy  is  to 
be  feared. 

It  would  be  unwise,  however,  to  repose  too  much  confi- 
dence in  this  feminine  monandrous  bias.-^  Mormonism  shows 
us  that  this  factor  is  not  strong  enough,  in  the]  absence  of 
religious  and  social  opposition  to  polygamy,  to  prevent  the 
extension  of  that  custom  far  beyond  the  lengths  contemplated 
by,  e.g.,  the  medieval  moralists.^i 

It  is  therefore  beyond  the  range  of  practical  politics  to 
put  polygamy  once  more  into  competition  with  monogamy  in 
western  civilization  ;22  but  that  developments  of  some  kind 
will  occur,  is  a  possibility  to  be  reckoned  with.  It  may 
eventuate  that  legislatures  will  try  the  effect  of  shifting  the 
main  incidence  of  criminality  from  polygamy  itself  to  its  cir- 
cumstances, in  so  far  as  these  are  antisocial  and  immoral.  Nay, 
there  are  already  some  anticipations  of  such  a  course.  The 
following  case  was  reported  in  the  newspapers  not  long 
since : — 

F.  H.,  41,  pleaded  guilty  to  committing  bigamy.  It  was  stated 
that  the  defendant  was  married  to  his  first  wife  in  1887,  and  she  was 


-0  R.  Michels,  Sexual  Ethics,  p.  222,  does  not  recognize  it. 

21  It  is  true  at  the  same  time  that,  in  the,  event.  Mormon  polygamy 
itself  may  not  escape  the  circumscribing  action  of  the  economic  and 
psychological  laws  which  have  been  observed  to  reduce  polygamy 
elsewhere  (cp.  R.  and  R.  W.  Kauffman,  The  Latter-day  Saints,  pp. 
340ff.). 

22  As  Forel  has  suggested,  he.  cit.  Havelock  Ellis  cites 
other  opinions  advocating,  with  more  or  less  intensity  of  conviction, 
the  same  course ;  but  his  own  view  is  that  "any  radical  modification 
of  the  existing  monogamic  order  is  not  to  be  expected,  even  if  it  were 
generally  recognized,  which  cannot  be  said  to  be  the  case,  that  it  is 
desirable."  The  practical  question  is  merely  one  of  the  recognition  of 
exceptional  cases.      (Cp.   H.  Ellis,   Studies,  vol.   vi,   p.  502.) 

29 


450  POSSIBLE    DEVELOPMENTS. 

still  living.  He  was  a  very  good  husband.  In  June  last  he  married  a 
young  woman  in  Wales,  telling  her  that  he  was  single,  and  he  treated 
her  very  well.  For  nine  months  of  the  year  he  was  away  at  sea,  and 
when  on  shore  he  lived  sometimes  with  his  first  wife  and  sometimes 
with  the  second.  Neither  made  any  complaint  against  him.  He 
voluntarily  gave   himself   up   to   the   police. 

The  second  wife  strongly  recommended  the  defendant  to  mercy. 
The  defendant,  who  bore  an  excellent  character,  said  he  gave  him- 
self up  to  ease  his  conscience.  The  magistrate  passed  a  nominal 
sentence  of  three  days'  imprisonment,  which  entitled  the  defendant  to 
be    at   once    discharged.23 

That  sentence  would  seem  to  be  too  lenient  in  the  present 
state  of  the  law ;  nor  would  it  seem  advisable  that  polygamy, 
even  in  its  most  favorable  manifestations,  should  be  entirely 
exempted  from  penalty,  in  societies  whose  general  principle  of 
marriage  is  monogamic.  The  most  we  can  say  is  that  the 
incidence  of  punishment  on  polygamy  per  sc  might  be  so  far 
lightened  as  to  make  it  possible  to  differentiate  effectively  be- 
tween the  degrees  of  criminality  attaching  to  its  attendant  cir- 
cumstances. A  bigamy  or  polygatny  initiated  by  deception,  and 
unfulfilled  as  to  its  inherent  obligations,  ought  to  be  visited 
more  severely  than  one  which  does  not  present  these  aggravat- 
ing circumstances ;  and  which  perhaps  obviates  other  courses 
of  conduct  even  more  antisocial  than  itself. 

But  in  saying  this,  we  must  not  be  understood  to  suggest 
that  organized  Christianity  can  extend  any  sort  of  patronage  to 
polygamy.  The  most  that  Christianity  can  do  is  to  refrain 
from  hampering  secular  legislatures,  in  their  endeavors  to 
solve  social  sex  problems,  by  placing  its  ideals  before  them  in 
a  wrong  perspective;  and  the  least  that  it  can  demand  in  re- 
turn is  that  its  own  disciplinary  regulations  shall  not  be  sub- 
jected to  secular  interference.  For  whatever  developments 
may  take  place  in  the  attitude  of  secular  legislatures  to 
polygamy,  it  is  certain  that  it  is  the  function  of  Christian 
opinion  to  safeguard  the  superior  value  of  monogamy. 


23  Some    other   cases   of    magisterial    leniency   toward   bigamy    in 
certain  circumstances  are  recorded  in  The  Times  of  June  25,  1914. 


CHRISTIAN    JUDGMENT.  451 

Hence,  however  charitably  Christians  may  regard  polyg- 
amists  who  are  acting  up  to  their  theory,  Christian  communi- 
ties could  not  unreservedly  admit  them,  along  with  monog- 
amists, to  full  Church  privileges.  To  do  so  would  cause 
harmful  confusion.  The  resulting  question,  whether  polyg- 
amists  ought  always;  to  be  urged  to  dissolve  their  unions  and 
consequently  evade  their  responsibilities,  as  the  condition  of 
receiving  Church  privileges,  has  come  up  as  a  practical  one  in 
the  mission  field ;  for  apparently  the  custom  of  baptizing  male 
polygamists  nowhere  obtains.  It  is  noticeable  that  while 
European  clergy,  out  of  sympathy  and  perplexity  as  to  the 
rights  of  the  case,  have  been  disinclined  to  urge  native  polyg- 
amists to  give  up  their  marriage  unions,  native  clergy  have 
taken  the  opposite  course.-'* 

The  view  of  the  Europeans  is  theologically  the  better  of 
the  two.  It  embodies  no  rash  judgment  of  dutiful  polygamists. 
It  is  grounded  on  the  spiritual  conception  that  God  is  no 
respector  of  persons,  and  can  save  without  external  baptism. 
But  the  native  clergy  must  be  credited  with  the  greater  knowl- 
edge of  the  character  of  their  race ;  and  their  more  thorough- 
going opposition  to  polygamy  may  be  the  soundest  policy,  in 
respect  of  immediate  moral  needs. 

It  is  for  the  spiritual  benefit  of  the  whole  community  that 
people  who  take  up  with  a  theory  and  custom  of  marriage 
lower  than  monogamy  should  incur  a  certain  measure  of 
ecclesiastical  censure  and  disability;  that  the  inferior  matri- 
monial status  should  be  marked.  Only  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that,  as  we  have  noted  in  another  connection,  ecclesias- 
tical censures  and  deprivals  are  not  infallibly  and  exhaustively 
interpretative  of  the  judgment  of  God.  On  principles  of 
Christian  hope,  and  of  faith  in  the  Divine  justice.  Bishop 
Gibson  suggests  that  non-sacramental  grace  may  be  conferred 
on  women  living  in  polygyny,  who  are  desirous  of  baptism, 
yet  whom  the  Church  authorities  think  it  inexpedient  to  baptize. 


-■^  Bishop  Gibson,  art.  cit.,  p.   142. 


452  CHRISTIAN   JUDGMENT. 

And  this  suggestion  deserves  consideration  in  connection  with 
other  persons  who,  it  may  be,  having  entered  the  state  of 
polygamy  from  imperative  reasons  and  under  exceptional 
stresses,  live  in  accordance  with  the  canons  which  it  has  re- 
tained from  the  full  ethical  scheme  of  monogamy.  And 
although  loyalty  to  the  monogamic  ideal  and  respect  for  the 
monogamic  sentiment  and  theory  of  the  historic  Christian 
Church  preclude  the  dispensers  of  sacramental  privileges  from 
communicating  publicly,  in  facie  ecclcsice,  even  such  polyg- 
amists,  it  is  possible  that  those  same  far-reaching  Christian 
principles  to  which  we  have  just  referred  would  justify  private 
communion  in  such  cases,  where  sickness  or  some  equivalent 
circumstance  had  made  the  question  urgent. 


ADDITIONAL  NOTE  I,  ON  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

The  present  writer  showed  the  necessity  of  postulating  a 
primal  existent,  and  drew  out  from  that  postulate  a  body  of 
necessary  inferences,  in  the  philosophical  competition  opened  a 
few  years  since  in  connection  with  the  late  Mr.  W.  Honyman 
Gillespie's  book.  The  A  Priori  Argument  for  the  Being  and 
Attributes  of  The  Lord  God.  It  will  be  in  place  here  to  repro- 
duce a  few  sentences  from  his  unpublished  essay : — 

"We  choose,  as  our  method  of  establishing  conscious- 
ness as  a  primary  factor  in  the  world-problem,  a  line  of  argu- 
ment starting  from  a  proposition  which  is  inherent  in  all 
thought.  From  this  premiss  we  shall  be  logically  necessitated 
to  infer  our  primary  factor;  and  shall  then  be  able  to  draw 
inferences  as  to  its  nature.  Among  these  inferences  will  be  that 
the  primary  factor  in  the  world-problem  is,  inter  alia, 
a  conscious  entity.  It  will  also  follow  directly  that  the  said 
conscious  entity  possesses  a  productive  or  creative  power. 

"To    proceed,    then :  metaphysically,    logically, 
mathematically,  it  is  true  that  nothing  is  nothing. 

"If  ever  there  were  an  inescapable  truth,  patent  to  the  un- 
derstanding from  all  points  of  view,  and  essential  to  all  coher- 
ent thought,  it  is  here.  If  there  were  a  primal  and  eternal  0, 
all  that  could  be  predicated  of  it  is  that  it  isi  O.  But,  indeed, 
we  have  to  create  a  symbol  for  nothing  before  we  can  apply 
thought  or  language  to  nothing.  We  are  using  a  figure  of 
speech,  when  we  say  that  nothing  is. 

"If,  again,  0  could  be  in  any  way  mathematically  treated, 
added  to  itself  to  n  terms,  or  raised  to  the  nth  power,  it  still 
is  O.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  illegitimate  to  bring  the 
concept  of  number  into  touch  with  the  supposed  primal  noth- 
ing.!   O:  that  is  all  that  can  be  said  of  it.    Therefore,  if  there 

1  Mt;  Tolvvv  firjS''   iirix^ipConev  apidiwv  n-f)Te  TrXijdoi 
M^re  TO  ev  irpos   to  p.rj  ov  irpo<T<pipei.v. 

(Plato,  Sophist,  238b.) 

(453) 


454  THE    ETERNAL   EXISTENT. 

had  been  a  primal  O,  there  would  be  the  same  0  now,  and 
nothing  could  ever  have  come  into  existence  at  all ;  for  on  this 
supposition  there  is  no  origin  for  an  existent.  And  therefore, 
if  there  is  an  existent  now,  there  must  be  an  eternal  existent. 

"The  eternal  existent,  the  A"  of  the  w^orld-problem,  is  in 
an  unknown  state,  and  has  indefinite  possibilities  of  predication. 
Our  principle  of  reasoning,  however,  necessitates  the  following 
assertion  about  the  primal  A',  that  it  must  contain  the  germinal 
factors  of  all  which  now  exists,  since  all  which  now  exists  can- 
not come  from  nothing,  which  is  the  alternate  concept  to  the 
primal  X. 

"Mr.  Gillespie's  argument  is  sound  where,  on 
account  of  existing  intelligence,  he  predicates  intelligence  of  the 
primal  existent;  for  the  forms  of  intelligence  now  existing  in 
the  world  must  have  come  from  a  source  cognate  or  homoge- 
neous with  themselves.  If  we  symbolize  them  as  M,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  they  cannot  have  arisen  from  a  source  P,  if  that 
source  is  in  no  sense  homogeneous  with  them,  but  only  if  P 
contains  an  element  m,  the  same  in  essence  with  M. 

"It  is  true  we  can  form  no  deduction  on  which  to  base  an 
adequate  comparison  between  that  which  is  manifested  to  our 
cognition  and  the  homogeneous  element  in  the  A'  from  which 
the  thing  manifested — idea,  quality,  faculty,  or  whatever  it  may 
be — is  derived.  .  .  .  For  example,  since  we  perceive 
such  manifestations  of  the  existent  as  consciousness,  intelli- 
gence, will,  and  personality,  we  assure  ourselves,  on  the  ground 
of  the  truth  upon  which  this  reasoning  is  based,  that  something 
there  must  be  in  the  primal  A  which  contains  or  represents 
the  factors  or  elements  essential  to  those  products ;  and  that  no 
factor  from  any  other  source — for  there  is  no  other  source — 
enters  into  those  products.  But  precisely  or  sufficiently  what 
are  the  factors  present  in  the  primal  X,  and  how  they  are  com- 
bined to  form  the  manifested  products  that  we  know,  cannot 
be  set  forth  by  a  priori  reasoning. 

"Now,  since  such  consciousness,  intelligence,  will  and.  in 
a  word,  personality  as  we  know  must,   upon  our  reasoning. 


A    PERSONAL   GOD.  455 

have  originated  from  some  homogeneous  element  in  the  primal 
existent,  we  have  reached  the  point  of  our  argument  at  which 
we  can  speak  of  the  existent  as  a  personal  God." 

These  considerations  afford  a  rational  basis  for  belief  in 
God ;  not  but  what  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  transsubjective 
reality  reveals  antinomies  before  which  thought  recoils  baffled. 
The  present  work  is  not  the  place  for  a  fuller  discussion  of 
these  philosophical  questions.  It  is  enough  to  remind  ourselves 
that  whatever  strictures  may  be  made  upon  the  work  of  par- 
ticular theologians  or  theological  systems,  it  is  none  the  less — 
as  metaphysicians  are  coming  to  recognize- — among  the  theo- 
logical data  of  Christianity  that  solutions  of  these  problems  can 
most  hopefully  be  sought ;  and  that  a  belief  is  not  necessarily 
antirational  because  it,  or  rather  certain  elements  in  it,  are 
suprarational.  That  the  Aristotelian  categories  of  thought  are 
final  and  exhaustive,  is  an  over-bold  assumption ;  and  it  would 
be  rash  to  assert  that  a  proposition  cannot  be  true,  merely  be- 
cause it  is  to  us  unthinkable.-^ 

Human,  i.e.,  finite  consciousness  cognizes,  but  cannot  be 
proved  to  create  relations  between  things."*  Its  cognition  goes 
back  to  ever-simpler  stages,  and  ultimately  to  mere  awareness, 
but  not  to  creation  ex  nihilo.-^ 

Some  important  attempts  have  recently  been  made  from 
the  side  of  sociology*^  to  show  that  God  is  a  purely  subjective 
notion  deduced  from  social  organization.  Sociology,  with  its 
analyses  of  the  mind  of  communities,  is  indeed  able  to  throw 
much  light  on  the  psychological  process  by  which  early  man 
grasped  the  fact  of  God's  existence ;  but  to  exhibit  that  process 
as  pure  subjectivism  is  not  warranted  by  the  facts.  Man's 
social  relations  do  not  cover  the  whole  ground  of  his  experience. 

-  Ct>.  J.  S.  Mackenzie,  art.  Eternity,  ad  fin.,  in  Hastings,  op.  cit., 
vol.  V. 

•"•  Cp.  The  Interpreter,  vol.  ix,  No.  3,  pp.  327f.  > 

■*  See  Macgregor,  The  Great  Fallacy  of  Idealism,  in  The  Hibbert 
Journal,  vol.  iv,  No.  4. 

^  Iverach,  art.  Epistemology,  in  Hastings,  op.  cit.,  p.  339a. 

6  Salvatorelli,  Introduzione  Bibliografica  alia  Scienza  delle  Re- 
ligioni  (Roma,  1914). 


456  THE    TWO   FIRES. 


THE   TWO   FIRES. 

Prov.  6 :  27 — "Can  a  man  take  nre  in  his  bosom,  and  his  clothes 
not  be  burned?" 

Fierce  as  the  fiery  brand  to  bosom  pressed 
Of  frenzied  prophet,  heedless  of  his  vest 
Scorched  and  consumed,  ofttimes  the  slumb'ring  glow 
Of  human  passion,  when  the  breath  doth  blow 
Of  sin  mysterious,  flames  with   forceful  ire, 
Fervid  and  fatal  as  Elissa's  fire.i 

Crave  then  the  touch  of  Heaven's  altar  flame 
Purging  that  other,2  through  the  gracious  Name 
That  saves  a  world  corrupt  through  lawless  lust; 
(Strong  are  the  tempted  who  in  Jesus  trust!) 
As  sunlight  conquers  storm,  so  changes  Grace 
Foul  flames  of  lust  to  light  of  holiness. 

Yet  hold !  mistake  not ;  there  is  pain  with  fire : 
That  bosom  scarr'd,  those  flame-wounds  of  desire 
Proclaim  that  word;  here  glimmers  no  soft  sheen 
Gentle  as  rose-flush  'mid  the  restful  green ; 
But  pain-drawn  lips,  marred  brows,  and   fever'd  eyes 
Reflect  the  blood-red  glow  of  sacrifice. 


1  "Cseco  carpitur  igni,"  Virg.  ^5£n.,  iv,  2; 

"Quae  tantum  accenderit  ignem 
Causa  latet."     Id.,  v,  4. 

2  Isa.  6  :  6,  7. 


EPILOGUE. 


It  is  well  to  find  room  on  our  concluding  pages  for  some 
leading,  luminous  idea  which  may  give  a  general  character  and 
final  direction  to.  the  foregoing  essay,  as  it  now  reappears  in 
larger  fullness  of  growth,  and  may  be  said  to  have  reached  its 
majority  in  the  world  of  books.  Such  an  idea  has  been  sug- 
gested to  me  by  a  personal  reminiscence. 

Years  ago,  when  the  plan  of  this  book  had  not  yet  begun 
to  form  in  my  mind,  I  remember  preaching  a  sermon  to  boys 
on  purity, — I  should  say,  rather,  against  impurity.  I  alluded 
to  the  fact  that  the  Christian  hermits  imaged  the  Spirit  of 
Impurity  as  a  black  child.  Someone  in  the  congregation  after- 
ward asked  why  this  was  the  image  employed.  I  gave  an  im- 
perfect, tentative  answer.  Now,  after  studying  for  years  the 
phenomena  of  sex,  I  think  I  see  the  reason. 

In  the  foregoing  discussion  of  sex  questions,  the  operation 
of  the  law  of  evolution  has  been  recognizd  throughout.  We 
have  seen  how  the  human  sexual  instinct  gathers  in  many  and 
various  materials  and  fuses  them  together.  It  is  thus  that  it 
grows. 

The  maturing  sexual  instinct  ought  to  be  producing  more 
and  more  surely  and  abundantly  its  higher  phenomena, — chiv- 
alry, dignity,  self-sacrifice,  and  the  larger  impulses  of  love ; 
otherwise,  in  point  of  fact,  it  is  not  maturing.  The  sex  life 
ought  to  become  such  as  can  be  taken  up  into  the  perfect 
spiritual  manhood  exhibited  in  the  character  of  Christ. 

As  the  obverse  to  this  higher  growth,  we  perceive  the 
Black  Child.  Impurity  always  spells  sexual  immaturity  of 
some  kind;  it  may  be  the  dissolution  of  the  composite  sexual 
instinct  and  the  abnormal  growth  of  some  particular  constit- 
uent ;  or  it  may  be  retrogression  to  standards  of  conduct  which 
it  is  men's  duty  and  interest  to  overpass. 

(457) 


458  EPILOGUE. 

Here  is  our  leading  idea.  How  to  realize  it?  Well,  ob- 
viously, the  sexual  instinct  must  be  spiritualized.  It  must 
claim  as  its  rightful  domain  those  upper  regions  of  thought, 
feeling,  and  faith  where  glow  spiritual  fires  in  ever-changing 
beauty.  It  must  itself  reflect  their  brightness,  as  shot  silk  be- 
trays the  presence  of  a  new  material. 

What  is  the  chief  force  by  which  this  change  is  effected? 
Here  we  reach  a  second  leading  idea,  which  differentiates  the 
present  work  from  certain  others  which  have  treated  of  the 
same  theme.  Josef  Miiller,  in  a  book  cited  several  times  in  the 
foregoing  pages,  refers  sympathetically  to  the  teaching  of  the 
mystic  Eckhardt,  namely,  that  ascetic  renunciation  is  a  higher 
state  of  the  soul  than  love,  that  it  establishes  between  the  soul 
and  God  a  closer  connection  than  love  can  effect. 

Here,  then,  is  a  clear  point  of  difference  between  the 
medievalist  and  the  modernist  theologies.  The  present  volume 
— if  it  may  be  classed  as  moral  theology — belongs  to  the  latter 
school  of  thought ;  and  the  author  trusts  he  has  sufficiently 
established,  by  the  whole  drift  of  his  argument,  the  conclusion 
that,  while  asceticism  has  indeed  proved  a  factor  of  power  and 
value  in  the  world-process,  it  is  none  the  less  immeasurably  in- 
ferior in  spiritual  effectiveness  to  love.  The  chief  stress  of  the , 
Christian  ethical  revelation  is  on  love  to  God  and  His  creation. 
And,  theologically  speaking,  love  is  identical  with  light.  Love 
throws  more  light  on  obscure  problems  than  asceticism  can  do. 
Humane  feeling,  co-operating  with  informed,  illumined  reason, 
is  a  more  effectual  defense  than  austerity  against  sexual  sins, 
and  is  better  able  to  mold  aright  the  growing  sexual  instinct. 


INDEX    OF    AUTHORS    CITED. 


Abolitionist  Federation,  183 

Achelis,  107n.,  229n. 

Acta  Martyrum,  353,  354 

Acton,  48 

Addams,  171n. 

Adveniat     Regnum     Tuum,     36n., 

121n.,  277,  328n.,  329n. 
^schines,  422 
"/Esculapius,"  172n. 
Allen,  84 

Allen,  Man'  Wood,  44 
Andrewes,  Bp.,  213,  243n. 
Apocalypse  of  St.  John,  15n.,  307n., 

408 
Aquinas,  43n.,  96n.,  118n.,  128,  129 

136n.,  159,  210n.,  259,  309,  353n., 

379,  415n.,  423,  435n.,  444,  445 
Aristophanes,  18,  422 
Ars  Amatoria,  355 
Athenagoras,  107,  209n. 
Atkinson,  J.  J.,  393,  394 
Augar,  348n.,  349n.,  350,  353 
Augustine,   16,  70,  93n.,  94,   137n., 

158,  159,  230,  331,  444 

Baldwin,  J.  N.,  47,  149n. 

Barr.v,  Bp.,   11  In. 

Bartels,   see   Ploss  &  Bartels 

Barton,  307n.,  401n. 

Basil,  St.,  438,  440,  441,  442 

Beale,  43n.,  75,  195n. 

Bengel,  34n.,  214ff.,  368n. 

Benziger,  443n. 

Berkusky,  19n. 

Beveridge,  406 

Billington-Greig,  169n. 

Bishop  of  Carpentaria,  193 

Bisping,  413n. 

Blackwell,  Elizabeth,  91 

Blagden,  232n.,  242n. 

Bloch,  vi,  ix,  8n.,  lOn.,  12n.,  16, 
17,  18n.,  19,  40n.,  47n.,  48n.,  55n., 
65n..  77n.,  80,  88n.,  93n.,  lOln., 
119n.,  156n.,  158n..  159n.,  162n.. 
168,  169n.,  172n..  175n.,  225, 
299n.,  303,  3(Hn.,  311n.,  315n., 
324n..  326,  348n..  366n.,  388.  389, 
393n.,  397,  398,  399,  414 


Bloem,  152n. 

Blumreich,  116n. 

Boccaccio,  233n. 

B51sche,  293n. 

Booth,    135n.,    163n.,    179n.,    180n., 

195n.,  249 
Bousset,  14n.,  405,  408 
Bramwell,  Milne,  355n. 
Bridget,   S.,   109n.,   127 
Brieux,  183n. 
Brightman,  418n. 
Browning,  8n. 
Biicher,  K.,   103n.,   162n. 
Bullen,  F.  T.,  101 
Bureau,  P.,  11  In.,  123n.,  149n. 
Burkitt,  F.  C,  406n. 
Byel,  Gabriel,  446n.,  448n. 

Caine,  Hall,  360fF. 

Callixtus,  Pope,  317 

Calvino,  61 

Campana,  414n.,  419n. 

Cannon,  206n.,  444n.,  446n.,  448n. 

Canon  Law,  92n. 

Canticles,  14,  22n. 

Carpenter,  289n. 

Carpzov,  297 

Catholic  Encyclopaedia,  362n. 

Chamberlain,  246n. 

Charles,  R.  H.,  382n.,  418n. 

Charles,  Mrs.  Rundle,  411 

Cheetham,  337n. 

Chetwood,  65n. 

Chromatins,  438 

Chronicles,  157n. 

Chrysostom,  St.,  367n.,  440ff. 

Church    Times,    The,    59n.,    305n. 

408 
Churchill.  Col.   Seton,  274,  279 
Cicero,  274 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  369 
Clinias,  82 

Code  of  Holiness,  259-269 
Coe,  319n. 

Coenobium,   109n.,   127n. 
Coghlan.  92,  11  In.,  192n. 
Collins,  Bp.,  273 
Colossians,  Epl.  to,  233n. 

(459) 


460 


INDEX. 


Comber,  Dean,  94n. 

Committee  of  Fifteen,  183 

Commonwealth,  The,  364n. 

Contemporary  Review,  10 

Coriat,  37n.,  448n. 

Corinthians,  Epl.  to,  29n.,  34n., 
73n,  93n.,  104n.,  134n.,  204n., 
213n.,  233n.,  245.  254n.,  266n., 
347n.,  367n.,  373n.,  374,  375n., 
385n,  425n. 

Crawley,  A.  E.,  viii.  7n.,  10,  12n., 
19,  54ff.,  75n.,  131n.,  135n.,  152n., 
204n,  212n.,  280n.,  313n.,  376n., 
43  In. 

Crespi,  A.,  127,  ISOn. 

Crittenton,  170n. 

Cross,  416n. 

Curschmann,  434n. 

Dallas,  H.  A..  231n.,  364n. 

Dalman,  87n.,  370 

Darwin,  33n. 

Deissmann,  379n. 

de  Joriis,  97n.,  436n. 

Delitzsch,  416 

Demosthenes,  422 

Despeignes,  172n. 

Deuteronomy,     15n.,     132n.,     133, 

254n.,  288n.,  401 
Dibdin    and    Healey,    97n.,    243n., 

442n. 
Die  Neue  Gen.,  vii,  53n.,  71n. 
Dillmann,  17n.,  263,  402n. 
Dio  Cassius,  349 
Divorce  Reports,  91n.,  250n.,  252 
Dixie,  Lady  Florence,  124 
Dobschiitz,  von,  15n..  364n.,  370n., 

372n.,  373n.,  374,  438n. 
Dolonne,  135n. 
Driver,  S.  R.,  15n.,  87n.,  107n.,  400, 

433n.,  437n. 
Driver-White,  207n..  262n.,  26Sn. 
Drumomnd.  Prof.,  23 
Dryden,  294n. 

Drysdale,  123n.,  125n.,  126n. 
Duchesne,  229n. 
Duckworth,  77n. 
Duran,  Carolus,  124 

Earle,  Mrs.,  42n. 

Edersheim,  230n.,  243,  366n.,  369n. 

377n. 
Elberskirchen,  118n. 
Elderton,  E.,  39 


Ellis,  Havelock,  v,  vi,  vii,  1,  7.  8,  9, 
12n.,  13,  18n.,  19,  19n.,  27n.,  29, 
34n.,  36,  38n.,  43n.,  48n.,  49,  54, 
55n.,  57n.,  58,  65n.,  78,  81n..  84, 
110,  116,  118n.,  120n.,  125n.,  126, 
127n..  148n.,  156n.,  I58n.,  159n., 
160,  161,  163n.,  164,  167,  168.  169, 
183n.,  187n.,  188,  191n.,  192n., 
196n.,  197n.,  206,  207,  208,  210n., 
212,  219,  220,  227,  229n.,  276n., 
280n.,  281n.,  284,  285.  289n..  291, 
292,  293n.,  296n.,  299n.,  300n., 
302n.,  305n.,  310,  311,  318,  321n., 
331n.,  360,  372n.,  391,  394,  401n., 
414,  420.  421,  422n.,  423n.,  424n., 
425n.,  428n.,  429,  434n.,  436n., 
449n. 

English  Review,  The.  39.  169n. 

Ephesians,  Epl.  to,  14,  233n.,  282n.. 
289,  347n.,  375 

Epiphanius,  439,  442 

Eugenics  Review,  vii,  45n.,  92n., 
11  In.,  126n. 

Eulenburg,  84.  212n.,  220n.,  252n. 

Euripides,  225 

Evangiles  Synoptiques,  416n. 

Ewald,  C.  A.,  120 

Ewald,  H.  von,  376n. 

Exner,  44 

Exodus,  Book  of,  15n.,  246n..  266n. 

Expositor,  373n. 

Expository  Times,  377n.,  402n.. 
418n. 

Ezekiel,  Book  of,  14,  216n.,  244. 
254n. 

Fallaize,  387n.,  391n. 

Farrar,  F.  W.,  40n. 

Fere,    C,    32n.,    37,    43n..    48,    82, 

156n,  235n.,  284,  285,  304,  309, 

383n. 
Ferriani,  50n. 
Flexner,  174n.,  176n.,  182n. 
Flint,  82 
Foa,  84 
Foley,  441n. 
Fonsegrive,  G..  278n. 
Forel,  vi,  vii,  18n.,  33,  39,  41,  56n., 

61n.,  66n..  72n..  80,  84,  85,  95n.. 

130n.,    142n.,    148n.,    156n.,    161, 

163n.,     164,     183,     211n.,     228n., 

235n.,  240n.,  294n.,  295n.,  300n.. 

306,  307,  339,  355n.,  425n,  426ff., 

448.  449 


INDEX. 


461 


Foresti,  407n. 

F6rster.   3,    19,  45.  46.   5Sn.,   72n., 

75n..  84,  86,  100,  127,  218,  347n., 

368n.,  384n. 
Frazer,  J.  G.,  10,  54,  399n.,  409n, 

431n. 
Freeth,  R.  E.,  390n. 
Freud,    S.,    27ff.,   3Sn.,   41n..   48n., 

71n.,  85,  87flF.,  148n.,  317n.,  318, 

321n.,  2>2?>,  392n. 
Friedlander,  L.,  275,  304n. 
Fiirbringer,  83,  118n.,  119,  120,  205, 

208,  209n.,  212n. 

Galatians,  Epl.  to,  122,  282n.,  424n. 

Galeeby,  C  W.,  39 

Gardner,  E.,  25n.,  247n.,  406n. 

Garlitt,  73n. 

Garvie,  363n.,  404n. 

Gaster,  66n. 

Gebhardt,  348n. 

Geddes    and    Thomson,    vii,    8n., 

73n.,  82,  115,  228n.,  235n.,  285n., 

305   313 
Geme'lli,    18n.,    19.    34n.,    38n.,    41, 

44n..  45,  46,   49,   59n.,  61,  67n., 

71,  7Sn.,  76n..  109n.,  118n.,  225n., 

300n.,  383n.,  428 
Genesis,  Book  of.  14,  15n.,  17,  67, 

107n.,   132n.,   133n.,  263n.,  288n., 

398n.,  400,  402,  403 
Gibson,  Bp.,  445n.,  446n.,  451n. 
Gilgames,  Epic,  of,  402 
Gillen,  79n.,  325n..  389,  393 
Gillespie.  W.  H.,  2Z2,  453,  454 
Gillet,  45 
Godet,  381 

Godfrey.  J.  A.,  Z2,  95,  97 
Good,  38n.,  84 

Gore,  Bp.,  lln.,  246,  264,  406n. 
Grand  Magazine,  241n. 
Grav.  L.  H.,  309n.,  423n.,  431n. 
Green.  T.  H..  149n.,  330 
Gressmann,  398n. 
Griiber,  83,  92n. 
Gschwind,  363 
Guardian,  The,  36n.,  44,  239,  247n., 

248n.,    255n.,    266n.,    269,    270n., 

382 
Gurnsey.  75,  210n.,  433 
Gury,  428 

Hall  Caine,  360ff. 
Hall.    Stanlev.    63n.,    65n.,    321n., 
Z22,  323n.,  425n. 


Hall,  T.  C..  93n. 

Hall,  W.  S.,  44 

Hallam,  135 

Halsbury,  Lord,  99n. 

Hansen,  305n. 

Hardwicke,  Lord,  98 

Hardy,  E.  J.,  215n. 

Harnack,    16.  222,  348n.,   364,  365 

Hartland,  80n.,  310,  311,  391n., 
414n. 

Hartley,  40n.,  77n.,  148n.,  173, 
197n.,  235n.,  262n.,  448n. 

Hastings,  vi,  7n..  15n.,  16n.,  66n., 
93n.,  98n.,  107n.,  135n.,  152n., 
213n.,  224n.,  229n.,  263n.,  307n., 
308n.,  309n.,  313n.,  319,  323n., 
335n.,  341n.,  363n.,  364n.,  374, 
378,  387.  390n.,  391n.,  395n.,  398n., 
401n.,  402n.,  404n.,  406n.,  411n., 
414n.,  416n.,  417n.,  421n.,  423n., 
425n.,  431n.,  438n.,  441n.,  443n., 
445n. 

Hastings,  Warren.  92n. 

Havelburg.  92n.,  234n. 

Healey,  442n. 

Heape,  207 

Hebrews,  Epl.  to,  93n.,  204,  254n., 
368n. 

Heim,  84 

Henslow,  329n. 

Hermes,  438 

Herodotus,  397,  431,  433 

Hight.  G.  A..  277n. 

Hime,  43n.,  49n.,  50 

Hirschfeld,  32n.,  48n.,  71n.,  196n., 
276n..  285n.,  287n.,  288,  289n., 
293,  294n.,  295,  296n.,  297n.,  304n. 

Hoensbroech,  von,  v. 

Hoflfding,  157 

Homer,  225,  423n. 

Horace,  118n.,  282n. 

Hosea,  13n.,  216n.,  225n. 

Howard,  vi,  lOn.,  19n..  96n.,  97, 
105n.,  136n..  196n.,  242n.,  250n., 
254,  268n.,  387n.,  442n. 

Hude,  Anna,  230n. 

Hurtado,  97n. 

Hutchinson,  Woods,  436n. 

Hyslop,  J.,  313n. 

Idiotae  Contemplationes,  400n. 

Ignatius,  406n. 

II  Rinnovamento.  330n. 


462 


INDEX. 


II    Rogo,    vii,    84n..    lllii.,    123ii., 

278n. 
Inge,  Dean,   125,   126,  342n.,  327n. 
Interpreter,  The,  341n.,  455n. 
Isaiah,   13n.,  22n..  233n.,  237,  401, 

408n.,  409,  447n.,  452n. 
Iverach,  455n. 

James,  S.  B.,  149n.,  266n. 

James,  W.,  26n.,  311n,  411 

Jastrow,  Morris,  401n.,  409n.,  422 

J.  E.  H.,  32n. 

Jeffries,  Richard.  280n. 

Jelf,  382 

Jeremiah,  216n.,  408n,  423n.,  431, 

447n. 
John,    Epl.    of,    221  ff.,    222n.,    226, 

254n..  367n. 
Johnston,  432n. 
Joseph,  340n. 
Jowett,  292n. 
Justin  Martyr,  15n.,  405 
Juvenal,  18,  106,  107,  282,  353,  422 

Kaminer,  39,  64n.,  65n.,  83n.,  92n., 
109n.,  116n.,  118n.,  119,  120n., 
184n.,  185,  205n.,  208n.,  209n., 
21  In.,  212n.,  220n.,  234n.,  252n., 
285n.,  291n.,  299n. 

Kauffman,  449n 

Keane,  A.  H.,  390n.,  398n. 

Keith,  207n. 

Kennett,  432n. 

Key,  E.,  19 

Kiefer,  48n. 

2  Kings,  311n. 

Kitchener,  Lord,  190 

Kitchin,  S.  B.,  249.  439n. 

Knapp,  206n.,  444n.,  446n.,  448n. 

Knight,  E.  F.,  447n. 

Kohler,  17 

Kossmann,  119,  120,  205.  208 

Krafft-Ebing,  1,  2n.,  49,  156n..  285. 
303 

Krauss,  160n.,  317n. 

Kubel,  368n.,  413n. 

Kuenen,  398n.,  431 

Kuster,  401n. 

La  Revue,  198n. 
Labriolle,  23n. 
Lactantius,  439,  442 
Lamb,  Charles,  312 
Lambert,  364n. 


Lambeth  Conference,  266,  448n. 

Lamentations,  Book  of,  14,  408 

Lang,  A.,  398n. 

Langin,  15n. 

Lankester,  Ray,  304 

Lea.  H.  C.  99n.,  135n.,  443n. 

Leconte,  33,  217n. 

Lemonnyer,  398n. 

Lepmann,  A.  and  P.,  39 

Letourneau,  7,  8,  51,  226 

Leute,  135n. 

Leviticus.   132n.,  207n..  254n.,  259, 

262n.,  265n.,  266n..  288n. 
Leyden,  von,  65n.,  120 
Liddon,  368n. 
Livy,  275 

Lodge,  Sir  O.,  335,  337 
Loewenfeld,  24ln. 
Loisy,  416 
Lombard,   Peter,  93,  97.  202,  444, 

448n. 
Lombroso,  398n. 
Loreburn,  Lord.  272 
Lourbet.  217n..  235 
Love  and  Pain,  156n. 
Luce,  61 
Luckock,  Dean.  247n..  437n..  439n.. 

442 
Lucretius.  225n..  311,  423n. 
Luekin,  202n. 
Luke,    St.,    Gospel    ace.    to,    226n.. 

246,  364n.,  367n.,  369n.,  416,  417 
Luthardt,  226n. 

Luther.  16.  77n.,  215n.,  216n.,  444 
Lyttelton,  Rev.  E.,  40 

MacColI,  Canon,  269 
MacCulloch,  307n.,  401n. 
Macgregor,  455n. 
Mackenzie.  344n..  455n. 
Maclean,   16n. 
Mahood,  Mrs..  238 
Mantegazza,  84 
Mark,    St.,    Gospel   ace.   to,   226n., 

366n.,  405 
Marrett,  224n.,  232,  324n. 
Martens,   153n.,   196n. 
Martial,  422 
Mason,  A.  J.,  273 
Matthew.    Gospel    ace.    to,    226n., 

245,  246,  248.  250.  254n.,  283n., 

328n.,    364n.,    366.    369ff..    410n., 

437n.,  439n. 
Maturin,  Rev.  B.  W.,  384 


INDEX. 


463 


Mayreder.  Rosa,  142n. 

McComb,  37n.,  448n. 

Melody,  J.  W.,  362n. 

Mercier,  C.  A.,  127,  249,  284,  285, 
306 

Meyer,  14Sn.,  330n. 

Meyrick,  370n. 

Michelet,  305n. 

Michels,  R.,  8n.,  449n. 

Milligan,  370 

Missal,  Roman,  436 

Moberley,  264 

Modern  Churchman,  The,  16n. 

Modi,  402n. 

Moffat,  247n.,  409n. 

Mohler,  v. 

Moll,  vi,  viii,  18n.,  19.  27n.,  32n., 
35n..  38n.,  49n.,  58n.,  65n..  71n., 
78.  84.  85.  205.  21  In.,  219,  284, 
285,  289n.,  291n.,  292n.,  293n., 
299n.,  300n.,  301,  302n.,  305n., 
308,  383n.,  392n.,  420n.,  424n., 
434n. 

Mommsen,  352 

Morizot-Thibault,  249 

Muirhead.  J.  H.,  318n..  323n.,  399n. 

Miiller,  J.,  16n.,  274n.,  275n.,  353n. 

Murillo,  408 

Mvers,  F.,  23,  37n.,  66,  226,  231, 
411 

Xapoleon,  125 

National  Review,  11  In. 

Neander,  229n. 

Neisser,  64n.,  184,  185,  186n. 

Nestle.  372n. 

New  York  Report,  173 

Newman,  Cardinal,  70 

Newsholme,  110.  126 

Nicholson,  Bp..  203n.,  204 

Nineteenth   Century,   231n.. 

Nineteenth     Century     and     After, 

11  In.,  121n..  238  ' 
Niven,  335n.,  341n. 
Northcote,  R.  H..  353n. 
Nosgen,  283n.,  366n.,  367n. 
Nova  et  Vetera,  149n.,  150 
Nystrom,  120,  127 

Onslow.   11  In. 
Oppenheim.  44 
Orelli,  von,  409 
Origen.  438,  439,  442 


Our  Army  in  India,  180n.,  190n. 
Ovid,  354 

Paley,  205 

Pall  Mall  Gazette,  126 

Parez,  C.  H.,  16n. 

Pastorello,  84 

Pater  son,  W.  P.,  263n.,  374,  378 

Paul    St.,    73,    93n.,    94,    122,    133, 

134fif.,  204,  213,  236,  245,  254n., 

282,  367,  373ff.,  374ff.,  375,  405, 

431n.,  433 
Pearson,  Norman,  231n. 
Perry-Coste,  206,  434 
Peter,  St.,  Epl.  of,  214n. 
Petrone.  Igino,  46 
Philo,  327,  345 
Pietschmann,  399n. 
Pinches,  402n. 
Plato,    In..    12,    13,   22,   226,  292n., 

367n.,  453n. 
Plautus,  225 
Pliny,  274 
Ploss  &  Bartels,  141n.,  145n.,  152n., 

154,  159,  160n.,  163n.,  207n.,  224n., 

232.  314,  315n.,  316n.,  330n.,  349, 

361,  399n.,  443n. 
Posner,  65n.,  184n.,  434n. 
President  of  U.  S.  A.,  11  In. 
Prevention,  vii. 
Prezzolini,  llln. 
Priests'  Prayerbook,  49 
Prince,  411n. 
Propertius,  274n. 
Prophets,  O.  T.,  15n. 
Proverbs,    Book    of,    204n.,    254n., 

452 
Psalms,  Book  of,  14 
Puglisi,  lln.,  313n.,  321n. 
Putnam,   174n. 

Qujestiones  Theologize  Medicopas- 

toralis,  vii. 
Quinton,  308n. 

Rade,  M.,  93n.,  215n.,  242,  324n. 

Ramsay,  2,73,  Z77 

Rapid  Review,  The,  126 

Ree,    18n. 

Reinach,  330n. 

Remondino.  430n. 

Renan, 

Revelations,  254n.,  288n.,  347n. 

Review  of  Reviews,  199 


464 


INDEX. 


Richmond,  Ennis,  36,  Zl ,  49 

Rivers,  390n. 

Robertson,  F.  L.,  274 

Rochefort,  102n. 

Rockwell,  442n.,  446,  447n.,  448 

Rodin,  275 

Rohde,  225 

Rolker,  33n. 

Romans,  Epl.  to,  254n.,  288n.,  373n. 

Roper,  A.  G.,  106 

Rosenthal.  80n.,  387,  396n. 

Routh,  305n. 

Rowntree,  39 

Rudolf,  162 

Rupprecht,  178n. 

Ruth,  Book  of,  237 

Saintyves,  P.,  80n.,  415n. 

Saleeby,  vii,  126,  127n. 

Sallust,  275 

Salvatorelli,  455n. 

Salvian,  158 

Samuel,  Bks.  of,  14,  15n.,  90n., 
225n.,  289,  401,  430 

Sanchez,  v,  16n.,  96n.,  108,  136n., 
205,  207,  208,  210n.,  330n.,  396 

Sanday,  406n. 

Sandow,  435n. 

Sawtell,  45n. 

Sayce,  402 

Schleiermacher,  77n. 

Schmidt,  398n. 

Schoetensach,  390n. 

Schrader,  213n. 

Schrenk-Notzing:,  285n. 

Schultze,  163,  164 

Senator  and  Kaminer.  39,  64n., 
65n.,  83n.,  92n.,  109n.,  116n., 
118n.,  119,  120n.,  184n.,  185, 
205n.,  208n.,  209n.,  21  In.,  212n., 
220n.,  234n.,  252n.,  285n.,  291n., 
299n. 

Sherwell,  39 

Shield,  The,  viii,  ix,  172n. 

Simpson,  J.  V.,  395n. 

Sirach,  233,  236,  254n. 

Skeat,  232n.,  242n. 

Smith,  G.  A.,  13n.,  288n. 

Smith,  H.  P.,  15n. 

Smith,  W.  R.,  15n.,  80n.,  132n., 
260n. 

Smyth,  Newman,  243 

Social  Evil,  The,  173,  176n.,  182, 
183 


Soldiers'  Small  Book,  190 

Song  of  Songs,  27,,  225,  276,  277 

(see  also  Canticles). 
Southern  Cross  Log,  391n. 
Spectator,  The,  160,  403n. 
Spencer    and    Gillen,    79n,    325n., 

389,  390n.,  391,  393,  398 
Sperry,  17,  92n.,  116,  117,  118,  119, 

120,  210,  219fif.,  221n. 
Stall,  Z2,  36n.,  44,  436n. 
Stocker,  Helene,  viii.  71 
Stocker,  Lydia,  229n. 
Strack,  204n.,  283n.,  368n. 
Stratz,  13 
Stuttgart,  417n. 
Suetonius,  302,  349n. 
Suffrin,  411n. 
Summa  Angelica,  448n. 
Swain,  P.,  59n. 

Tacitus,  225,  349,  350 

Tarnowsky,  18n.,  59n.,  284,  286n., 
303 

Taylor,  C,  Bp.,  370n. 

Taylor,  J.  W.,   llln.,   121n. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  141n.,  218n.,  424n. 

Teichmann,  E.,  417 

Telegraph,  The  Dailv,  442n. 

Temple,  R.  C,  390n.' 

Tennant,  lln.,  400,  401n. 

Terence,  134,  225 

TertuUian,  22,  209n.,  413 

Theilhaber,  106 

Themistocles,  227 

Theocritus,  225,  276 

Theodore  of  Tarsus,  442 

Theodoret,  442 

Thessalonians,  Epl.  to,  5n.,  93n., 
133n.,  204n. 

Thoinet-Weysse,  32n.,  48n. 

Thoma,  215n. 

Thompson,  R.  Campbell,  402n. 

Thomson,  see  Geddes  and  Thom- 
son. 

Thucydides,  414n. 

Thurston,  135n. 

Tiberius.  349 

Times,  The,  445n.,  450n. 

Timothy.  Epl.  to,  233n.,  236n., 
369n.,  371 

Timothv  of  Alexandria,  439 

Titus,  Epl.  to,  371 

Tolstov,  220n..  365,  366,  369 

Toy,  204n..  254n. 


INDEX. 


46: 


Trail,  38,  40,  82,  203ff.,  204 
Trench,  307n. 
Troitsky,  98n. 
Tyrrell,  363 

Uhlhorn,  158,  246.  446n. 
Ultzmann,  84 
Union  Tracts,  271n. 
Ussher,  R.,  108 

Vergil,  452n. 
Vielhaber,  363 
Vita,  61 

Vleim,  G.,  393n. 
Vonier,  41  In. 
Vornig,  84 
Vuillermet,  100 

Wade,  G.  W.,  247n. 

Wagenen,  Van,  310n.,  448n. 

Walton,  25Sn. 

Washbourne,  443n. 

Wassermann,  172n. 

Watkins,   257,   268n.,   397n.,  438n., 

439n.,  444n.,  445n.,  448n. 
Weger,  84 
Weiss,  J.,  247n.,  328n.,  366n.,  368n., 

405n.,  408,  416     . 
Weissmann,  12 
Wells,  2n.,  44,  54,  173 
Wenck,  F.,  423n. 
Wenley,  v. 

Westcott  &  Hort,  367n.,  Z12 
Westermarck,  2n.,  7,  8,  lOn.,  18n., 

32n.,  33f.,  53n.,  54ff.,  79n.,  80n., 

130;    146,    152n.,    204,    218,    235, 


Westermarck    (continued) . 
254n.,     257,     261,    268n.,     290n., 
292n.,  316n.,  317,  335,  377n.,  387, 
390n.,    391,    392,    394,    414,    430, 
431n.,  432,  443n.,  444n.,  448n. 

Weston,  Bp.,  408 

Weysse,  36n. 

Whadeoat,  210n.,  443n. 

Wharton,  159n. 

White  Cross  series,  32,  115 

Whitney,  442,  443 

Wilker,  60n. 

Windsor  Magazine,  33n. 

Winton,  Marv,  241n. 

Wisdom,  Book  of,  399 

Wolff,  65n.,  120 

Woman  at  Home,  The,  124 

Woman's  World,  The,  170n. 

Woods,  Alice,  5Sn. 

Woods,  Hutchinson,  lOn. 

Worcester,  37n.,  448n. 

Wordsworth,  Bp.,  16n.,  135n. 

Workman,  349n. 

Wulffen,  E.,  27f. 

Wundt,  47n.,  248n. 

Wustmann,  159n. 

York  Report  on  Divorce,  250n. 

Zeitschrift    f.    Sexualwissenschaft, 

423n. 
Zephaniah,  Book  of,  225n. 
Ziegler,  105,  229n. 
Zockler,     40n.,     49,     122n.,     137n., 

160n.,  204n.,  214n.,  283n.,  364n., 

368n.,  370,  371n.,  413n. 
Zola,  112,  113,  124,  213,  276 


30 


INDEX    OF    SUBJECTS. 


Abhag,  67. 

Abnormalitv.  sexual,  2,  25ff.,  47ff., 

116,   128,  284ff.,  383. 
Abolitionism,   180n. 
Abolitionist    federation,    183n. 
Abstinence,    sexual,    in    marriage, 

116,  123f.,  212,  365. 
Accommodation,  houses  of,  179n. 
Adolescence,  65,  82. 
Adultery,   Christian   interpretation 
of,  210,  215,  216,  243,  366. 

in  Middle  Ages,  39,   158ff. 

punishment  of,  251,  308. 

woman  taken  in,  Z12. 
Advertisements,   esthetic,  241. 

immoral,  239. 

matrimonal,  239ff. 
Affinity,   257ff. 
(XYdTrr;,     14. 
Agapetas.   14. 
Agatha,  351. 
Age  of  consent,  196f. 

of  marriage    (see   Nubility). 

stone,   19n. 
Agencies,  matrimonial,  241. 
Ahabhah,   14,  225. 
dKadapffla,    423. 
Albanians,   92n. 
Alcestis,  225. 
Alcohol,   38. 

Algolagnia,  41,  49,    170,   285,   298. 
Altruism,   10. 
Amatory   conflicts,  8. 
American   Indians,  448. 

legislation,   163. 

morals,  447. 
Anabolism,  156,  206,  235,  290,  434. 
Analysis   of   sex    impulse,    156. 

of  sex  love,  22,  156. 
Ancestor,  pre-human,  387. 
y\ndamanese,  390. 
Angel  of   Conception,  405. 
Angels,  marriages  of,  15n. 
Anglican  bishops,  20. 

church,  3n.,  73,  247. 

marriage   service,  94,  214,  244. 

prayer  book,  348. 


Anima  mundi,  411. 

Animals,  birth  rate  among,  114. 

modesty   among,   8. 

monogamy  among,   10. 

morality   in,   32. 

psychology  of,  33. 

sex   differentiation   among,   285. 

sexual  sin  among,  32. 
Annunciation,  405. 
Antenuptial   intercourse,    135n. 
Anthropology,  10-12,  74,  131n.,  204. 

physical,   77n. 
Anthropomorphism,   312,  331. 
Antichristianism,    349. 
Antinomies,  455. 
Antiquity,   sex   love  in,   22,    160. 
Apes,   205,  421. 
Apocalypse,   408. 
Appendix,  387. 
Arabs    (see    Semites). 
Aristotelian  categories  of  thought, 

455. 
Aries,  Council  of,  441. 
Army  regulations,    102,    179ff. 
Ars  amatoria,  355. 
Art,  ecclesiastical,  276. 

erotic,   274ff. 
Arunta,  women  of  the,  79. 
Asceticism,  3,  12,  15,  39,  49,  219f., 
366ff.,  458. 

Jesus  Christ  and,  363f. 

love  superior  to,  458. 

of  St.   Paul,  367. 

the  Gospel  and,  364. 
Asia  Minor,  morality  in,  14,  377. 
Aspiration,   ethical,   228. 
Assyrians,  41  In..  422. 
Athenians,   414n. 
Atonement,  379ff. 

effect  of  the,  383. 
Attraction  (see  Sexual  attraction). 
Aureole,  the  virgin's,  362. 
Australasia,     marriage     laws     in, 
266ff. 

prevention   in.   111,   123f. 

sexuality  in,   191. 

(467) 


468 


INDEX. 


Australian     aborigines,     389,    421, 

432. 
Authority,  moral,  5,  34f.,  40,   131, 

302. 
Autoerotism,  425. 
Autonomy  of  will,  338. 

Babylonians,  41  In.,  422. 
Bath,  the,  372. 
Bearing  of   sin,  379fTf. 
Beauty,  12,  89,  224.  227,  276. 
Belief  in   God,  453ff. 

rational  basis   for,  455. 
Berlin  "C.  D."  policy,   181f. 
Bestiality,  305,  307. 
Bethulah,  408. 
Betrothal,    136. 
Bible  on  marriage,  93. 
Biblical  views  of  se.xuality,  14. 
Bigamy,   268f. 
Birth    (see   Maternity). 

control    (see    Prevention). 

of  Jesus   Christ,  411. 

process,  411. 
unclean,   414. 

rate,   125. 
Bishops,  Anglican,  20,  IZ. 
Black  Child,  the,  457f. 
Blush,  8. 

Body,  sacredness  of,  133. 
Boyhood,   34f. 
Brigitta,    St..    336. 
Brothel   advertisements.    174n. 
Brothels,  88,  177,  179,  384,  434. 
Bull-fighting,   304. 
"Bundling,"   317. 
Bureaus,   matrimonial,  241. 

Caesar    (Emperor).   351. 
Caesar's  altar,  353f. 
Cain,  birth  of,  401. 
California,  purity  work  in,  163. 
Cantonments,   180f. 
Cardiac  affections,   120. 
Caresses,  219. 
between  men,  2,  25ff.,  47ff.,  116, 

128,   284ff.,   383. 
between  relations,  265. 
Carnal  sexuality,   14. 
Castration    (see   Sterilization). 
Catabolism,  12,  81,  156,  206f.,  235, 

290,  434. 
Catherine  of  Siena,  St.,  336. 


Celibacy,  12,  94,  365f.,  369ff. 
clerical,  367n.,  371. 
effects  of,  72,  82f.,  234. 
in  New  Testament,  370. 
Jewish  view  of,  370. 
obligation  of,  in  professions,  101. 
temporary,    185. 
in  women,  184. 
Certificates,  medical,    184f. 

of  character,  239. 
Change    (see  Evolution). 
Charms,  use  of,  66. 
Chastity,  4,  13,  62,  IZ,  87. 
hardness  of,  62,  12>,  250.  268. 

288,   369. 
ideals  of,  369f. 
Child,    Divine,   412. 
marriage,   390n. 
religion   in  the,   321  f. 
Childhood,  hygiene  of,  2>1 ,  51. 

impurities  of,  34ff. 
Chivalry,  457. 
Christ    (see  Jesus  Christ). 
Christian  conception  of  marriage, 
375. 
doctrine  of  indulgentia,  93f.  121. 
ethics,  3f..  81n.,  97,  316,  371. 
freedom,    122. 

morality,   changes   in,  3,  328f. 
persecutions,    349. 
revelation,  87. 
virginity,    347. 
Christianity,    attitude    of,    toward 
sex  questions,  3ff,  20,  IZ. 
and  asceticism  (see  Asceticism), 
healing  message  of,  66. 
Church,   Christian,  5,  29,  73f.,  93. 
129,  347. 
Anglican,  3n.,  IZ,  247. 
attitude    of,    on    special    ques- 
tions, 29,  244ff.,  267ff..  378. 
Early  North  African.  229. 
Eastern    Orthodox,   98. 
Roman,  49,  98f.,  443. 
Church  Councils,  441. 
High,  247. 
history,  348. 
Circumcision.  Zl ,  52,  430ff. 
accretions  to   the   rite,  432. 
age   for  performing,  432f. 
as  ornamentation,  431. 
hygiene  of,  37,  52,  433. 
origin   of,  431. 
religious  symbolism  of,  430ff. 


INDEX. 


469 


Circumcision,  St.   Paul's  opposi- 
tion to,  433. 
City,  sack  of  a,  139. 
Clandestine  marriage,  96f.,  99. 
Cleanliness,  430,  433. 
Clergj'    (see   Moralists), 
celibacy  of,    135. 
Elizabethan,  concubinage  among, 
135. 
Clergymen,   43. 
Cock-fighting,  304. 
Code  of  Holiness,  265f. 
Coeducation,  53ff. 
Cognatio  spiritualis,  257. 
Cognition  of  ideas,  341  ff. 

of  the  imperative,  336f. 
Cohabitation,    temporary,    132. 
Coition,   infertile,    115f. 
Coitus    (see  Sexual  act.  Conjugal 

intercourse). 
Collective  teaching,  44. 
Columbian  Indians,  448. 
Committee  of   Fifteen,   183. 
Comus,  355. 
'"Conation,"  323. 
Conception,  angel  of,  405. 

narratives,  411.- 

of  Jesus,  the  Son  of  God,  409ff. 

spiritual,  409ff. 
Concord,  mission  of,  253. 
Concubinage,  131ff.,  443. 

among  clergy,  135. 
Condemnatio   ad   lupanar,   353n. 
Condom,  119f.,  428. 
Conflicts,   amatory,   8. 
Congo,  peoples  of.  432. 
Congress    of    Mothers,    American, 
llln. 

Pan-Anglican,  445. 
Conjugal     intercourse,     frequcncv 

of,  205,  209. 
Conjugation,   79. 
Consanguinity,   257. 
Consequence  of  sexual  sin,  62ff. 

of  sin,  69. 
Constancy,   216,   242f. 
Continence,  effects  of,  72^.,  82ff. 

in  women,  234. 

law   of.   84f. 

periodic,   116fF. 
Contrectation,   78,   219f.. 
Convention.  236,  280f. 
Convents,  162. 
Conversation,  purification  of,  280. 


Cook  Islands,  421. 
Corinth,  church  in,  134,  374. 
Corporal    punishment,    47ff. 
Council  of  Trent,  98f. 
Courting,   12,  395. 
Covenant   token,   433. 

the  new,  438. 
Creation  tablet,   Babylonian,  401. 
Criticism,  ethical,  149ff.,  193f. 

David  and  Jonathan,  289. 
Davidic  descent  of  Jesus,  405. 
Day  schools,  59. 

Deceased  husband's  brother,  mar- 
riage with,  268f. 

wife's     sister,     marriage     with, 
258f.,  264ff. 
Degeneracy,  sexual,  308. 
Desexualization       (see      Steriliza- 
tion). 
Detention,    legal,    50,     181,     197f., 

384. 
Deterrents,   47ff. 
Detumescence,  78,   116,  220. 
Development,  sexual,  35,  286f. 
Differentiation,  sexual,  116,  286. 
Dignity,  457. 

Discipline,  church,  250,  263,  270. 
Disgust,   311. 
Divine  beings  and  sex,  229. 

Child,  412. 

grace,  103f.,  166,  213f. 

love    (see  Love  of  God"). 

providence,    104,    121,    140,   240. 

Spirit,  410f.,  416. 

will,  11,  131,  133.  Z27. 
Divorce,  Christ's  attitude  toward, 
250. 

church's    attitude    toward,    244, 
247ff.,  437,  441. 

Commission,  252,  359,  442. 

frequency  of,   377f. 

in  Christ's  time,  Z77. 

in  primitive  times,  442. 

Jewish  teaching  on,  254n.,  2)77. 

legislation   on,   248,   254f. 

modern  consideration  of,  242ff. 

patristic   views   on,   437ff. 

St.   Paul's  attitude  toward,  245. 

State's  attitude  toward,  248ff. 
Divorce   Commission,   252. 
Doctors,  42,  48,  75,   187. 
Doctrine  of  God,  345. 

of  humanity,  345f. 


470 


INDEX. 


Doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ,  345. 

of   St.   Paul,  94. 
Dogma,  fact  and  idea  in,  408. 
Dormancy    of    sexual    organs,   81, 

94. 
Dreams,  64,   76,  434fif. 
Dress,  233. 
Drunkenness,    139. 
Dusuns,  403. 

Eating,  9. 
Ebionism,   406. 
Economics,   109,   121. 
Ecstasy,  sexual,  224ff.,  227. 
Eden,  Garden  of,  401. 
Education,    sexual,    35,    40fif.,    193, 
291n.,  294ff..  383n. 
of  women,  21  If. 
Egyptians,  432. 
Elizabeth,     Renunciation     of     St., 

275. 
Emigration  of  women,  240f. 
Encratites,  375. 

Engagement,  ethics  of,  97ff.,  136. 
English  Church  Union,  270. 
Englishwomen,   chastity  of,    196. 

modesty  of,  238. 
Entertainments,   21. 
Epilogue,  457 f. 
Eridu,  vine  of,  402. 
Erogenic  zones,  48. 
"Epwj,    14. 
Erotic  art,  ethics  of,  2,  274ff. 

desire,  28. 

temperament,    34n. 
Eschatology,  333. 
Essenes,   369. 

Esthetic  advertisements,  241. 
Ethical  aspects  of  love,  24. 

aspiration,  228. 

ideals   of   sex    life,   323ff. 

religion,  321  f. 

thought,  modern,  193f. 
Ethics,  Christian.  3f.,  81n.,  97,  132, 
150,  316.  371. 

comparative,    149ff. 

evolutionary,    150. 

of   sex    (see    Sexual   ethics). 
Ethiopia,  431. 
Eugenics,  91ff..  110. 
Eunuchism,  370n. 
Evil,  origin  of,   11,  404. 
Evolution     of     sexual     morality, 
312ff. 


Evolution,  spiritual,  lS4f. 
Excommunication,   250. 
Exhibition  of  erotic  art,  277. 
Expulsion   from   school,  49fif. 

Fact  and  idea  in  dogma,  408. 
Fall  of  man,  lln.,  15n.,  400fif. 
Family  life.  53,  124. 
beauty   of,    124. 

limitation  of,   119. 

physician,  42. 

primitive,   394. 
Fathers,   Christian,  437. 
Fecundation,    79. 
Feet,  figurative  use  of,  in  Hebrew, 

222. 
Female,  conquest  of,  156. 

principle,    144ff.,   150ff. 
Ferret,  masturbation  in,  420. 
Fertility,  92,  402. 
Fertilization    (see    Procreation). 
Fires,  the  two,  456. 
Flesh,  the,  405. 
Flirting,    61n. 
Flogging   (see  Whipping). 
Folly   of   girls,    153. 
Forbidden  degrees    (see  Marriage 
prohibitions). 

fruit    (see  Fall). 
Forgiveness     of     sins,     63,     66ff., 

221  ff..  372f.,  379ff. 
Formosa,  388. 

Fornication,     74ff.,     88fif.,      129ff., 
374,  423 f. 

Biblical  views  of,  130fif. 

demoralization   effects   of,   75f. 

prescribing  of,  74,  383. 
France,     birth     control     in      (see 
Prevention). 

exhibitions  in,  293. 

homosexuality   in,  293. 
Fraternity,  primitive,  79f.,  371. 
Free  love,  95ff. 
Freedom,   Christian,    122. 
Frigidity,   sexual,   209f. 
Fructification,   417. 
Future  life,  229ff.,  382. 

Genesis     narrative     of     the     fall, 

•  400ff. 
Gentleness,    marital,   212. 
Gilgames,   epic   of,  402. 
Girls,      vounef.      men's      unchasity 
with.   153. 


INDEX. 


471 


Glands  of    Bartholin, 

TyQa-is,  214. 

Gnosticism,  375. 

God,   a  conscious  entity,  453. 

a   personal,   455. 

a  purely   subjective   notion,  455. 

belief  in,  453ff. 

doctrine  of,  345. 

in  the  sex  life,  332,  453. 

mercies  of,  379. 

spirit  of,  30,  374,  413,  415. 

the   eternal   existent,   454. 

will    of,    339fT. 
Good   and   evil,  400f. 
Goodness,  3431if. 
Gospel   and   asceticism,   364. 

and   sex   relations,   363fif. 
Grace  of  God  (see  Divine  Grace). 
Gregorian   decretals,    162n.       . 
Gregory  IX,  Pope,  160. 
Group-marriage.    389fif. 

Hammurabi,  262n. 

Haoma  tree,  402. 

Harlot    (see    Prostitution). 

Hathan,  432. 

Healing  processes,  63,  66. 

Heart,   circumcision   of,  433. 

Heaven,  87n.,  364,  366. 

Hebrews    (see    Semites). 

Heredity,    vitiated,     18,    34f.,    50, 

113f.,  286. 
Hermaphroditism,    285n. 
Hetairse,   374. 

Hetairism    (see   Concubinage). 
Heterosexualitv,    58f. 
High   Church,  "247. 
Holiness,  code  of,  265f. 
Home  Secretary,  279. 
Homeric  Age,  divorce  in,  377n. 
Hominid?e,   390. 

Homosexuality,   Biblical  views  of, 
288f. 

forms    of,    284ff. 

in   schools.  48f..  53f.,  58f. 

suggested   toleration   of,  287ff. 
Hope  in  God,  69. 
Horde,  the,  391ff. 
Hormones,  82,  306. 
Hospitals,    lock,    179fif. 
House  of  Commons,  267,  279. 
Human    cognition,   455. 
Humanity,    doctrine   of,   345f. 
"Humble  a  woman."  133n. 


Husbands,  competition   for,   147. 

wished    for,    146. 
Hygiene,  35,  51,  433,  435. 
Hymns,  435. 

Hyperesthesia,    sexual,   41. 
Hypnotism,  37,  383. 

Ideals,  ethical,  263,  376. 
Ideas,  cognition  of,  341  ff.,  408. 

moral,  5,  131,  302. 

nature  of,  340. 
Idle  word,  the,  280n.,  283. 
Ignorance,  danger  of,  42f. 
Illegitimacy,   disabilities  of,    198fif. 

Russian  legislation  on,  199. 
Illegitimates,   heredity   of,    198n. 
Illicit  sexual  unions,  95ff. 
Immanence,  453. 
Immoral    advertisements,   239. 
Immorality   (see   Sexual  sin.  Sex- 
ual  perversions). 
Immortality  and  sex,  229f. 
Imperative,  cognition  of  the,  336f. 
Impotence,  sexual,  65,   183f..  209. 
Impregnation,   79. 
Impure  thoughts,  70f.,  366. 
Impurity,  definition  of,  128ff.,  457. 

idea  of,  in  sex,  7ff.,  14,  36. 

sermon  against,  457. 

sexual,  31,  36. 

spirt  of,  457f. 
Inbreeding,   54,   261. 
Incarnation,   the,  406n.,  412. 

Divine,  419. 
Incest.  53,  257,  262. 
Incontinence,   causes  of,    17f.,   192. 

struggles   with,  70fif. 
Indian  army,  prostitution  in,  180f. 
Indissolubilitv    of    marriage.    91ff., 

375,  243f. 
Indulgentia,      doctrine      of.     93fif., 

104,  107.  121. 
Infanticide,  290. 
Infidelity,  religious,  135. 
Infirmity,   sins   of,   221flf. 
Innocent   IV,   Pope,   160. 
Instinct,    development    of    sexual, 

28,  77,  457. 
Instruction,   religious.    194. 
Intercourse,   antenuptial,    135ft'. 

conjugal.    221. 

interrupted,    120. 

promiscuous,    130. 

sexual  (see  Sexual  intercourse). 


472 


INDEX. 


Intercourse,  social,  53ff. 
in  general,  6(Jf. 

Intuition.  342. 

Inversion,    sexual,    81     (see    also 
Homosexuality) . 

Invert,    not    necessarily    a    Sodo- 
mite, 286f. 

Irene,  St,  351,  354. 

Isolation,  sexual,  238. 

Israel,  virgin  of,  408. 

Jacob,    67ff. 

Javanese  custom,  315. 

Jesus  Christ  and  sinners,  Zll. 

and  the  sex  life,  366f. 

attitude      toward      asceticism, 
363f. 
toward    sinners,    Z12. 

birth  of,  411. 

character  of,  457. 

doctrine  of,  345. 

human  experiences  of,   367. 

influence  over  women,  226. 

made  sin  for  us,  381. 

morality  in  time  of,  377. 

pre-existence  of,  412. 

recovers  lost  ideals,  376. 

son  of  David,  405.    . 

son  of  Joseph,  405. 

sovereignty  of,  IZ. 

teaching   on    sexual    morality, 
220ff.,  244ff.,  257,  263,  367ff. 

temptation  of,  87n.,  368f. 
Jewish  ethical  thought,  13f.,  370ff. 

(see  also   Semites). 
Joseph,  husband  of  Mary,  405,  412. 
Juvenile  depravity,  15,  20,  83,  197. 

Kaffirs.  421. 

Karezza,    219. 

Katabolism    (see    Catabolism). 

Kingdom    of    Heaven,    87n.,    364, 

366. 
King's  daughter,  a,  356. 
Knowledge,   conjugal,  214f. 
of  sex,  35,  40ff.,  74ff.,  188,  315, 
324.  331,  457. 
K'thib,  281. 

Lambeth   Conference,  20,   IZ,  266, 

448n. 
Language    (see  Words). 
Lasciviousness,  83. 
Legend,  religious  value  of,  407. 


Legislation  on  erotic  art,  277f. 

on  sexual  morality,  31,  52,   173, 
178,  256,  268ff. 
Legitimation,  198. 
Levirate  marriage,  262,  265. 
Liberty,  Christian  (see  Freedom). 
"Libidines,"   274. 
Life   beyond,   229. 

family,   53,   124. 
Lily   framed   in   ebony,   349ff. 
Literature  on  sex,  2,  43,  227,  242, 

397fif. 
Lock  hospitals,   179ff. 
Love,   343ff. 

conjugal,  216f.,  242f. 

impulses,   475. 

is  light,  458. 

moral   considerations,   24. 

obligation  of,  243.  7,11. 

of  God,  13,  69,  140,  351,  418. 

of  women,  225f. 

passion,  25. 

preference,   391. 

psychological    elements    in,    24, 
153fif. 

sexual,  6.  22,  11^.,  156f. 

spiritualized,   157,  224ff. 

superior  to   asceticism.  458. 
Love-ecstasy,     a    moral     stimulus, 
226,  229. 

despised  in  antiquity,  22,   160. 

history  of,  224ff. 

passion,    29. 
Lupanaria,   353ff. 
Luther's  marriage,  215n. 
Lycisca,  355. 

Male   organ,   212n.,   401,   421,  430, 
433. 

principle.  6,   13.   144ff.,   150ff. 
Manga  Mysteries,  388. 
Manichseanism,    13,   221,   365,   369, 

375. 
Man's    responsibility,    ZZ. 
Maoris,  421. 
Marriage,   a  religious  symbol,   13. 

accessible  to  soldiers,   103n. 

age   for,  91. 

among  animals,  129,  387f. 

arbitrary    restraints    of,    lOOff. 

bond,  243f. 

bureaus.  241. 

child.  390n. 

Christian    conception    of,   375. 


INDEX. 


473 


Marriage,  civil,  99,  101. 

clandestine,    96f.,    99. 

clerical,  99,  447. 

considered  impure,  414. 

contrasted      with      concubinage, 
129ff. 

early,  91  ff.,  238. 

ecclesiastical,  101. 

essentials  of,  95f.,  98,  131ff. 

ethics  of.   lln..  94,   131. 

forms  of,  96ff.,  397ff. 

group,  389ff. 

happiness  in,  214. 

hygienic  benefits  of,  76. 

ideal  of,  131,  243f.,  248n..  262ff.. 
366,  375  f. 

in  Middle  Ages,  96,  131,  375. 

in   New   Testament,  375. 

in  the  Bible,  93,   131. 

is  a  fall,  365. 

laws,   reform   of,   91. 

Luther's,  215n. 

masturbation   in,   427f. 

mota'a,    132. 

motives  of,   103f. 

necessity  of,  IZ,  91  ff.,  Z12. 

obligations  of,  243. 

origin  of,  387ff. 

physical  use  of,  202ff.,  364f. 

primitive,   387ff. 

prohibitions,    lOOff.,   257ff.,   392f. 

public,  330f. 

relations  unclean,  414. 

revelation  of,   11. 

right  of,  86f..  375. 

sacramental  theory  of,  96f .,  376. 

secundam    indulgentiam,    93f. 

service    (see   Anglican   marriage 
service). 

spiritual,  228. 

St.   Paul's   doctrine,  94. 

what   constitutes,   96ff. 
Marriageableness    (see    Nubility). 
Martyrdom,    347ff. 
Martyrs,  virgin,  347ff. 
Mary,  glory  of,  418. 

mother  of  Jesus,  409ff. 

persecution    of,   413. 

self-sacrifice  of,  412. 

spirit  of,  416. 
Masochism,  41,  48. 
Masturbation,  421  ff. 

condemned    by    Catholic    moral- 
ists, 422f. 


Masturbation,  effects  of,  83,  300. 

ethical    estimate    of,    81,     115f., 
424ff. 

in   animals,  32,  420. 

in  Bible,  34,  423. 

in  children,  18,  36,  421  f. 

in  Greek  and  Latin  classics,  422. 

in  married  life,  427f. 

in  primitive   races,  421. 

in  schools,  43ff. 

in  young  children,  36. 

mental,  72. 

mutual,  427f. 
Materialism,   94. 
Maternity,  considered  impure,  414. 

homes,  200. 
Matriarchate,    132,  260. 
Matrimonial  advertisements,  239ff. 

failure,  242ff.,  437ff. 
Matrimony    (see    Marriage). 
Medical  ethics   (see  Secrecy). 

examination,   171f. 

men    (see    Doctors). 
Medicine,  64ff.,  71. 
Medieval  morals,  443. 
Meetings,   purity,  20. 
Melanesians,   391n. 
Men,  affection  between,  284ff. 
Menstruation,    intercourse    during, 

207f. 
Mercies  of  God,   63ff.,  379. 
Meretrix,   134. 
Messalina,  354. 

Metaphysical  basis  of  sexual  mor- 
ality,   334ff. 
Middle  Ages,  divorce  in,  442. 
marriage  in,  96. 
morality    in,    39.    158ff. 
prostitution   in,   158ff. 
Missal,  Roman,  436. 
Mission   field,   polygamy    in,  444ft'. 

of   concord.  253. 
Moderatio.  214n. 

Modesty   about   natural    functions, 
233. 

Biblical'  estimate  of,    14,   232ff. 

ethical  purpose  of,  7,  232. 

in   animals,   320. 

of  Englishwomen,  238. 

origins  of,  7ff.,  232. 

sexual.  7,  312ff. 
Moloch,  6.  21,  35.  62.  95. 
Monandry,   449. 
Monkeys,  sexuality  in,  205.  421. 


474 


INDEX. 


Monogamy,  10,  11,  14,  387ff.,  396ff. 

universe,  335. 
Monotheism,  66. 
Moral   growth,  34f. 

judgments,   imperfection   of  hu- 
man, 5,   131,  302. 

suasion,   40,    172,    176,   251,   268, 
270   384 
Moralists,'  2,  32,  88.  130,  384. 
Morality    among    soldiers,    138ff. 

Christian,    328f. 

in    New    Testament    times,    371, 
376. 

in  time  of  Christ,  Zll . 

origin    of,   312ff. 

standards  of,  149ff. 

theology.  329ff. 
Morals,   medieval,  443. 

service,    175,    188. 

sexual,    149. 
Morbidity,  51,  62,  66,  436. 
Mormonism,  444. 
Mortal   sin,   129f. 
Mosaic  law,  327. 
Mothers  and  sons,  40f. 
Multiplicatio  amicitise.  259f. 
Murder,  algolagnic,  90,  301. 
Mutterschutz    Bund,    154. 
Mystic    rose     (symbol    of    B.    V. 

Mary). 
Mystical   intuition,   342. 
Mystics,   medieval,   26. 
Mythology,  414f. 

Nakedness,   15,   53,   55,  262. 
Narcissism,  304. 
Nature,  interference  with,  114. 
of  ideas,  340. 
symbolism.  401  f. 
worship,    12f. 
Neomalthusianism      (see     Preven- 
tion). 
Nero,  302f. 

Neurasthenia,  63f.,  83ff. 
Neuropathic     conditions,     62,     81, 

286f. 
New  Zealand,  21,  38.  123,  191,  198f. 
commission  appointed  in,  123f. 
government.    58.    123. 

legislation.  123,  269.  279. 
schools.    57. 
Nocturnal  pollution.  64.  76,  434ff. 
frequency  of,  434. 
in  literature,  434. 


Nocturnal  pollution,  moral  aspect 
of,  435f . 
volitional  repression  of,  435  f. 
Norms,  ethical,   193f. 
Notification  of  disease,   183ff. 
Nubility,  91ff. 
Nude  in  art,  275fif. 
Nullity  of  marriage,  242ff.,  437ff. 
Nurses,  Zl . 
Nymphomania,    120. 

Oknanikilla,   79. 

Onan's  trespass,  106. 

Onanism    (see   Masturbation). 

Opfer,  87. 

Orgasm,   sexual,  76.  81,   115.   120. 

reaction  after,  81,  221.  301. 
Orinoco   belief,   79n. 
Ornamentation,  43 In. 
Ovum,  not  sexually  passive,  235. 

Pain,   a   sexual   stimulus,   48    (see 
also   Algolagnia). 

power  of  bearing,  433. 
Pairing  season,  primitive,   387. 
Panegyris,  225. 
Paradise,  62f. 

narrative    (see   Fall). 
Pardon,   divine,  441. 
Parental  control,  193. 
Parents,  duties  of,  40ff.,  62,  188. 
Paternity,  primitive,   79f.,  371. 

registration  of,   198ff. 

unknown,  79f. 
Patriarchate,  260ff. 
Peasantrv,   morality  among,  312ff. 
Penis   (see  Male  organ). 
Penology,  49f..  284f.,  301. 
Periodicity,  sex,  8,  206,  434. 
Persecutions.  Christian,  349. 
Personal   purity,   346. 

religion,   103f.,   164. 
Perversion,     sexual     (see     Sexual 

perversion). 
Phimosis,  433. 
Phrygia,   morality   in,   Zll . 
Physical   degeneration.   112. 
Pictures,   indecent,   277f. 
Pigeon,   masturbation   in,  420. 
Pinacium,  225. 
Platonic  friendship,  55. 
TrXeovefta,   203. 

Pollution    (see    Nocturnal    pollu- 
tion). 


INDEX. 


475 


Polyandry,  448n. 
Polygamy,  268.  444ff. 

after    the    Thirty    Years'    War, 
447. 

Christian  judgment,  451  f. 

conjugal,   152. 

how  justified,  447f. 

native  clergy  on,  451. 

possible   developments,   450. 
Polynesians,  280,  421. 
Pope,   dispensing  power   of,  446. 
Population,   checks  on,    106,   114f., 

431. 
Potentia  coeundi,   115. 

generandi,    115. 
Poverty.   107. 
Prayer,  2>7. 
Preaching,  383f. 

Pregnancy,      intercourse      during, 
204f. 

spiritual,   79. 
Pre-human   ancestor,   2)%7. 
Prepuce,  430,  433. 
Prevention,  96ff.,   106ff.,  290. 

analogies  of,  113f.,  123. 

dangerous,    116,    120. 

economic   aspects,   109. 

ethical   aspects,   124. 
•  historical  aspects,   106. 

in  Bible,  122. 

in  Middle  Ages,   107. 

in  United  States,  123. 

legislation   on,    122f. 

methods   of,    114ff. 

moral    aspect  of,    108f.,   113ff. 
Primitive  courtship,  395. 

family,    394. 

marriage,   387ff. 

morality,   131n.,   135n. 

paternity,  79f.,  371. 

social   organization,  391fif. 
Principles,   female,    144ff.,    150ff. 

male,   144ff.,  ISOff. 
Privacy  in  sex  love,  22,  160,  323flf., 

457. 
Probehe,    137. 
Procreation,   80f.,   91  f.,    116f.,   326. 

control   of    (see    Prevention). 
Procreative  utility,  326. 
Procurers,    punishment    of,    169f. 
Prohibition   of  marriage,   262. 

of  prostitution,   179n.,  392.    . 
Promiscuity,    128ff.,   388f. 
Prophets  of  Israel,   13. 


Prophets  of  morality,  371,  376. 
Prostate,    72. 
Prostatic   fluid,   65. 
Prostitute,   a  citizen,   173. 

an   outcast,    158. 

product    of    environment,    163. 
Prostitutes,    fate  of,   161. 

"good,"    159. 

in  captured  city,  142f. 

in  medieval  Europe,  159. 

marriage   of,    162. 

psychology    of    163ff. 

purveyors   of   clean,    179,    181. 

registration  of,  179,  182. 

repression  of,   160,   178f. 

rescue   work  among,   158ff. 

sense  of  sin  among,   142.   181  n. 

treatment   of,    158ff.,    180. 
Prostitution,   74ff.,  88,    138ff.,  388. 

aggressive,    173ff. 

alleged    necessity   of,    74ff.,    144, 
180. 

Christian   views   of,   159. 

dangers  of,  86f.,  95,  171  f. 

discontent   with    it,    155.    181n. 

in  a  garrison  town,   103n.,  180. 

in   India,   180. 

justified    (?),   144,    180. 

legislative     control     of,      172ff., 
164,    178,    182f. 

psychological    conditions,    155. 

religious,   10,   132. 

repulsive,  159. 

toleration  of,  155,  158f.,  177. 

self-defense,   155. 
Prudery,  94,  238,  278. 
Psychology,  318ff.,  342. 
Psychosexual        hermaphroditism, 

291. 
Puberty,  91. 
Punishment,  47ff. 

capital,  284f.,  301. 

corporal,  47f. 

divine,  62f.,  382. 

unwise.  38,  287. 
Purity,  20,  144f..  22,2,  343ff.,  384f 

guilds,  200.  383f. 

personal,  346. 

question,    20,   31. 

spirit   of,   3S8ff. 

Q'ri,  281. 

Quacks    (see  Specialists). 

Queenslanders,  280n. 


476 


INDEX. 


Questions    for   parents,    35n. 

Rainbow,  23. 

Rape,  143. 

Rarotongans,   421. 

Reaction    after    orgasm,    81,    221, 

301. 
Recklessness,  sexual,  128,  203,  208f. 
Reformation,  moral,  40,   172,    176, 

251,  268,  270,  384. 
Reformatories,   50,   56ff.,    197. 
Registration  of  illegitimates,  198fif. 

of  prostitutes,  179,  182. 
Reglementation.    171  ff..    182. 
Rehearsal,  sexual,  135n. 
Reincarnation,  412. 
Religion  and  sex,  329f!'. 

in  the  child,  321  f. 

personal,    103f.,   213f.,  456. 
Religious   factor,  339. 

instruction,    194. 
Remarriage,  248ff.,  261n.,  371. 

after  divorce,  248ff. 
Renaissance,  art  of,  276. 
Repugnance,   sexual,   53. 
Repulsion,  sexual,  53,  209,  257,  262. 
Rescue    work,     158ff.,    173,    176f., 

180. 
Responsibility,  5,  32,  299,  302f. 

of  woman,  265. 
Restoration  of  sexual  nature   (see 
Healing  processes). 

primitive,   11,   lln. 
Revelation,   Christian,   87. 
Rights,  natural,  131,  368. 

sexual.  86f.,  131,  237.  260ff.,  369. 
Roman  Church  and  divorce,  250. 

missal,  436. 
Russian  legislation,   199. 
Rut,  226n. 
Ruth,  story  of,  237. 

Sack  of  a  city,  139. 

Sacrament  of  marriage,  96f.,  375f. 

Sadism    (see  Algolagnia). 

Safe   (see   Condom). 

Saints,  26. 

Saints'  days,  348. 

Salvation,  preaching  of,  384. 

Sandow  exercises,  435n. 

Satyriasis,  120. 

Savages,   sex   love   in,   19n. 

School   life,  42ff..  49ff. 

Schoolmasters,  43,  62. 


Science  of  sex,  3. 
Sculpture,    Greek,    274. 

Roman,  275. 
Secrecy,  desire  for,  8fif. 

medical,   187. 
Secularism,  248n. 
Seduction,  90,   132. 
Self-abuse    (see    Masturbation), 
-control,    156f. 
-love,  79. 

-sacrifice,  45,  87,  95.   103,   121  f., 
233,   244,    291,    308f.,   364ff., 
370.   375,  457. 
of  Mary.  412. 
-suggestion,  66. 
Selfishness,    masculine,    89f.,    199f. 
Seminal  discharges  (see  Nocturn- 
al  pollution). 
Semites,  432. 

Sermon    agaist    impuritj^   457. 
Serpent,  401. 
Severus,  352. 

Sex,  a  factor  in  progress,  12. 
-cells,  77. 
differentiation,    imperfect,    115f., 

286. 
future  of,  228f. 
hunger,  324. 
knowledge,   35,   40ff.,    74ff.,    188, 

315,  324,  331. 
life,  ethical  ideals  of,  323ff.,  457. 
Christ  and  the,  366f. 
God  in  the,  332. 
St.  Paul  and  the,  367,  373f. 
lives  of  saints,  26. 
love,  analysis  of,  22,   160. 
metaphysical   basis   of,   334ff. 
mixing  of,  56ff. 
morality  and  theology,  329ff. 
question  at  Corinth,  374. 
relations  vmclean,  414. 
science  of,  3. 
sins  of,  379. 
.Sexes,    disproportion   of,   446. 
Sexual   abstinence,   116,   123f., 
212f.,   365. 
act,  77,   114ff. 

counted  unclean,  414. 
activity  in  the   female,  235.     » 
attraction,   12,  54.  225,  233,  235. 
desire,    moderated    in    marriage, 
.       119. 

women's,   118. 
education,  35,  40ff.,  188. 


INDEX. 


477 


Sexual  ethics,  1,  11,  24,  144,  331. 

Christian,     3f.,     81n.,      131ff., 
371ff. 
evolution,  312flf. 

excess    in    marriage,     128,    203, 
-      208f. 

function,  imperfect  control  of,  71. 
gratification,  how  far  necessary, 

74ff. 
immaturity,  457. 
impurity,    31,   443,   457f. 
instinct,  development  of,  28,  11, 
457. 

spiritualized,  458. 
instruction  40ff. 
intercourse,  75. 
inversion,    sexual,    81    (see    also 

Homosexuality ) . 
literature,  2. 
love,  6,  22,  77ff. 
morality,   40ff.,   91,   312ff. 
nature,  cleansing  of.  221ff. 
neurasthenia,  63f.,  83,  183f.,  435. 
organs,  dormancy  of,  81,  94. 

imperfect   formation  of,   115f. 
periodicity    (see   Periodicity), 
perversion,    2,    25ff.,    47ff.,    116, 

128,  284ff.,  383. 
phenomena,  27. 
precocity,    34f. 
prohibitions,    152. 
promiscuity,   128ff. 
relations,  the  Gospel  and,  363ff. 

must  be  spiritualized,  458. 
renunciations,   148. 
repugnance,  53. 
repulsion    (see   Repulsion), 
rights,  324. 

shame   in   animals.   320. 
sin,  5,  88,  221  ff.,  379ff. 

among  animals,  32. 

analysis   of,   15,   32f. 

consequences   of,   62ff.,   68. 

effects  of,  62ff.,  382. 
taboo,  53. 
temperance,  324. 
unions,  illicit.  95ff.,   131ff. 
Sexuality  in  antiquity,  17,  224f. 
in   celibacy,   72. 

in  civilization,   1,   14ff.,   191,  234. 
in  Middle  Ages.  442f. 
in  primitive  races,  19n. 
in   spiritually  minded  men,  70. 
in  women,  17.  117,  210,  234,  240. 


Sexuality  on  the  carnal  side,  14. 

spiritualized,  28,  224ff. 

two  Biblical  views  of,  13ff. 
Shame   (see  Modesty). 
Sin    (see    Evil). 

"bearing"    of,    380. 

mortal,   129. 

sense  of,  5,  88,  221  ff.,  379ff. 
Sins  of  sex,  379. 
Sinfulness,  notion  of.  in  sex   (see 

Modesty,  Impurity). 
Slave  morality,  317. 

prostitutes,    168f. 
Slavery,  430. 
Social   evil    (see   Prostitution). 

intercourse,   53ff. 
Society,  evolution  of,  391  ff. 
Sociology,  455. 

Sodomy    (see    Homosexuality). 
Soldiers,  morality  among,    138ff. 
Soldiers'  wives,  441. 
Solicitation,    174n. 
Specialists,   64ff.,   71. 
Speech,  impurity  of,  457f. 

sins  of,  215,  282. 
Sperm,  235. 

Spinsters,   freedom  of,  235. 
Spirit  of  God,  30,  374,  413.  415. 

Divine,  410,  416. 

Holy.   410.   414. 
Spiritism.  230. 
Spiritual  beings,  evolution,   154f. 

enlightenment,    154. 

manhood,   457. 

marriage,  228. 
Spiritualized  love,  157,  224ff. 

sexual   instinct,   458. 
St.  Vincent  de  Paul,  160. 
State    (see   Legislation). 
Statuary    (see    Sculpture). 
Sterile  period.   117f. 
Sterilization,   50.  80,  308ff. 
Stimuli,  sexual.  54.  299. 
Stone   Age.   sexuality   in,   19n. 
Sufferings  of  Mary,  412f. 
Suggestion,   prohibitive,   Zl . 

self-,  66. 
Summa  Angelica,  the,  448n. 
Sun-clad  woman,  408. 
Swahili  women,  401. 
Symbolism,   nature,  401  ff. 
Sympathy,  IZ,  83,  267. 
Syphilis,    184f. 


478 


INDEX. 


Taboo,  sexual,  10,  15,  53,  152,  260, 

262  f. 
Tardemah,  23. 
Tattooing,  431n. 
Teaching,   194,  383f. 

of  Tolstoy,  365. 
Temperament,   erotic,   34n. 
Temperance,  324. 
Temptation,  384,  403,  456. 
Themistocles,  227. 
Theology  and  sex  morality,  329ff. 
Thoughts,     impure     (see     Impure 

thoughts). 
Tiberius,   349. 
Tobacco.  38. 
Todas,  390n. 
Toledo,  Council  of,  443. 
Tongans,   431. 
Transmutation,  28f. 
Tree  of  knowledge,  403. 

oi   life,   401  ff. 
Trent,  Council  of,  98f. 
Trust  in  God,  personal,  67. 
Truth,  343ff. 

self-evident,   342f. 
Tuberculosis,    109. 
Tumescence,  78,   116,  212,  220. 

Unchastity        (see       Incontinence, 

Sexual   sin). 
Universe,  the  moral,  335. 
University    life,    56f. 
Unnatural     crimes      (see     Sexual 

perversion). 
Use,  law  of,  76. 

Varicocele,    65. 
Veddahs.  394. 
Veil,   symbolism  of,  374. 
Venereal    disease,    prevention    of, 
171ff. 
and   marriage,   183ff. 

medical      examination      be- 
fore,  183ff. 
secrecy,  187. 
registration,  186. 
Vigpataokhma  tree.  402. 
Vincent  de   Paul,   St.,   160. 
Vine  of   Eridu    (see  Eridu). 
Virgin  birth,  the,  of  Christ,  405fif. 
goddesses,  409n. 
of  Israel,  the,  408,  414. 
of   Nazareth,  414. 
martyrs,   347fif. 


Virgin  martyrs,  execution,  356. 
the  outrage,  355. 
the  sentence,  353. 
the  trial,  352. 
Virgin's   aureole,   the,   362. 
Virginitate,    De,   440. 
Virginity,  Christian,  347. 

estmiates  of.   133,  358. 

false  estimate  of,  360. 

glory  of,  362. 

in   art,  348. 

in  history,  357. 

in  New  Testament,  347. 

in  pagan  Rome,  349. 

spirit  of,  359. 

toward    a    deeper    estimate    of, 
361. 
Virility,   157. 

in   primitive   races,  361. 
Volition    (see   Will). 

War,  ix,   138ff.,  315. 
Washing,   hygiene  of,   433. 

symbolism  of,  221  f. 
What  is  love,  22. 
Whipping,  48f.,  89. 
White-slave  traffic,   168ff. 
Widowhood,  261n. 
Wife's  kindred,  262. 
Will,  47,  70f.,  85,  286,  243,  341. 

autonomv   of  the,   338. 

Divine,   11,   131,  133,  2,27,  446. 

of  God.  339ff. 
Wives,  soldiers',  441. 
Woman,  emancipation  of,  374. 

the  sun-clad,  408. 
Women,  education  of,  21  If. 

homosexuality    in,    284ff. 

literature    by,    154. 

masturbation   in,  422. 

modesty  in,  232ff.,  238,  374. 

of  the  Arunta,  79. 

public  utterances  of,   154. 

sexuality  in,  17,   118,  234. 

social   work   of,    154. 

spiritual  evolution  of,  375. 

trust  of,    157. 
Word,  the,  380. 

-painting,  276. 
Words,  indecent,  280ff.,  457f. 

Yellow  peril,   125. 
Young     girls,     men's     unchastitv 
with,   153. 


